The World and Everything in It: April 13, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is brought to you by listeners like me. My name is Andrea Bailey and I live in Monticello, Illinois. I am a single mom to three teenagers. Every morning after I say goodbye to them, I listen as I walk to our town’s public middle school where I teach social studies to sixth graders. I hope you enjoy today’s program

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! The Biden administration proposed changes to Title IX related to school sports and transgenderism, clarifying or more confusing?

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And a woman’s comments go viral when she confronts a bill that would mandate ethnic studies. You’ll hear from her today.

KOFI MONTZKA: We used to have a race-based system. We got rid of it, and now you’re all trying to bring it back.

Plus, an unlikely team is working to rebuild one of America’s oldest African American communities.

JAMES EARL: Here’s a bunch of white boys from New York and some from Florida and we’re coming down here and working in a totally black area, with a very deep south slave ship history, which was amazing. I never heard of. There's more that unites us than divides us.

And WORLD commentator Cal Thomas on how speaking with humility removes bitterness.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, April 13th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BUTLER: And I’m Paul Butler. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Belfast » President Biden said Wednesday that Northern Ireland must “not go back” to the violence that scarred it for years before a U.S.-brokered peace deal..

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Twenty-five years ago this week, the landmark Belfast Good Friday Agreement was signed. And it wasn’t easy. I was a United States senator at the time, and there were no guarantees that the deal on paper would hold.

Biden noted that Northern Ireland’s total economic output had doubled since the Good Friday peace deal was signed in 1998. And:

BIDEN: There are scores of major American companies wanting to come here, wanting to invest.

Northern Ireland is currently mired in a political crisis. It has been without a functioning government for roughly a year amid a post-Brexit trade dispute. Biden said “It’s up to us” to ensure that peace endures.

Inflation » Inflation appears to be slowing down according to a new government report.

On a month-to-month basis, the Labor Department says consumer prices rose just 0.1 percent in March. That’s down from February’s 0.4 percent.

On a year-over-year basis, prices were 5 percent higher in March than they were a year ago. But that’s the smallest year-over-year increase in almost two years.

Leaked Pentagon docs reveal concerns about UN chief » Recently leaked classified documents reveal that the U.S. government thinks the head of the United Nations is a little too quick to bend to Russia’s will. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher reports.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The leaked Pentagon papers suggest that Washington has been closely monitoring UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Some of the documents even describe private messages between him and his deputy.

The documents say that Guterres, concerned about a global food shortage, was willing to involve “sanctioned Russian entities or individuals” to move food out of Russia.

And the Pentagon feels Guterres is "undermining broader efforts to hold Moscow accountable for its actions in Ukraine."

The UN pushed back this week, saying Guterres has not been soft on Moscow, only driven by the need to lessen “the impact of the war on the world’s poorest” citizens.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Ukraine » Ukraine launched an investigation Wednesday into a gruesome video that appears to show the beheading of a Ukrainian soldier.

The video spread quickly online and drew outrage from officials in Kyiv.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday:

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY: What is always the goal of a terrorist? To break life.

He said Russian forces have committed war crimes and terrorist acts from the first day they invaded mainland Ukraine.

Zelenskyy is also calling on the heads of the International Monetary Fund to confiscate Russian Central Bank assets around the world and use them to help rebuild Ukraine.

NPR quits Twitter » NPR says it is quitting Twitter over a new label on its account. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown has that story.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN: Twitter labeled the account of National Public Radio as “state-affiliated media.”

The network does receive taxpayer money, despite coverage that is largely favorable to pro-abortion and LGBT causes. NPR says those funds make up less than 1% of its operating budget.

Twitter later changed the label from state-affiliated to “government-funded media”  and gave it to a few other news groups that receive government money.

Twitter owner Elon Musk said, “Our goal was simply to be as truthful and accurate as possible.”

But NPR says it’s quitting Twitter because the platform is “falsely implying that we are not editorially independent.”

Musk on Wednesday tweeted—quote—“Defund @NPR.”

After pushback from the BBC over a “government-funded” tag, Twitter changed that network’s label to “publicly funded.” The BBC said it welcomed the change.

For WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.  

Tim Scott » Republican Senator Tim Scott is one step closer to a 2024 presidential bid.

TIM SCOTT: The more I travel, the more excited I am about where I am in the race and why we started the exploratory committees.

For months now, the South Carolina lawmaker has been building a campaign infrastructure and visiting early voting states.

Several other Republicans have announced their candidacy, including former President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: clarifying how Title IX protects women’s sports. Plus, a mom who’s challenging CRT in Minnesota classrooms. 

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday, the 13th of April, 2023.

You’re listening to WORLD Radio and we’re so glad you are! Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler.

First up on The World and Everything in It: Transgenderism and school sports.

Back in March, the World Athletics Council banned biological men who’d gone through puberty from competing in women’s sports. This follows a similar decision by the World Aquatics organization back in June 2022. Now, the World Athletics Council did say that it would reexamine the policy ahead of the 2024 Olympics, but for now women competing at elite levels in sports like swimming and track and field are protected from competing against biological men.

REICHARD: But what about school sports?

Well, on Thursday, the Biden Administration proposed adding one sentence to the rules that apply Title IX to K thru 12 and college sports. Now, this sentence is a doozy, just over 80 words, so here’s the idea in brief. If a school which receives federal funding wants to make a rule prohibiting boys from playing on girls teams and vice versa, that rule must meet two criteria. First, it must be related to an educational objective. And second, it must minimize the harm transgender students would experience in being barred from playing with members of the sex with which they identify. But the rule is pretty vague on what counts as minimal harm, so if it goes into effect, it’ll be up to the lawyers to figure out those specifics in court.

BUTLER: WORLD’s education reporter Lauren Dunn says that for schools looking for guidance on tough decisions regarding transgenderism and school sports, the policy isn’t helpful.

LAUREN DUNN: Looking at the fact sheet from the Department of Education, we see lots of phrases like “generally be able to participate,” or “particularly difficult to justify,” “reasonable provisions giving schools flexibility.” And it just shows that even though the document says it was set up to give clarity to schools, it really doesn't do that.

REICHARD: And given the events of the past year, schools from kindergarten to college need clarity now more than ever.

Back in March 2022, a biological male identifying as a female named Lia Thomas won the NCAA championship, defeating every biological female in the competition.

BUTLER: Mimi Crush, a Louisville, KY, swim coach is the mother of one of those swimmers, who at the time was a freshman at NC State. While she generally avoids using words like “fair” or “unfair” when it comes to swimming, Mimi says this situation was different.

MIMI CRUSH: The beautiful thing about our sport is that it is very much time based. So the clock does not lie, you know, the pool is perfectly set up so everybody gets the same water, the same space in the lane. So it is, as far as, you know, fairness goes, our sport is already set up to be pretty objective. But I feel like in this particular situation, it is perfectly described. I mean, that is what it, I mean, it was not fair for Leah to be competing with, against these women.

REICHARD: One of those women was Riley Gaines, who tied for 5th with Thomas in the women’s 200 meter freestyle championship race. Because there was only one fifth place trophy on hand at the awards ceremony, the NCAA decided to give it to Thomas instead of Gaines.

Fast forward to last week. Gaines was invited to tell her story at a Turning Point USA event at San Francisco State University. While many of the attendees supported Gaines, a group of protesters grew so loud and even physically abusive that police had to escort Gaines to another room.

SOUND: [People yelling “trans rights are human rights”]

Sound heard there from a video Gaines posted after the event.

BUTLER: Now, Gaines is just one example of many female athletes getting attacked for opposing policies that allow biological men to play in women’s sports. And that’s something the framers of Title IX’s protections for women’s rights could never have anticipated. Here’s WORLD’s Lauren Dunn again.

DUNN: Title IX was passed into law a little over 50 years ago with the purpose of protecting women's participation in sports to make sure they had equal rights in sports compared to men. And with these rules and similar policies, what we see is Title IX being used really to protect men—biological males—participation in women's sports. So it's just another example of how this transgender ideology becomes a topsy-turvy take on the world and really ends up hurting people that we've tried for a long time to secure rights for and to secure equal protection for.

REICHARD: The proposed change to Title IX regulations is not yet on the books…it will enter a public comment period sometime in the next couple weeks, and then the Department of Education will review those comments and make changes. A similar rule that was proposed last June has not yet come into effect, so there’s no guarantee that this new rule about transgenderism and school sports will hit the pool anytime soon.

BUTLER: Lauren Dunn is WORLD’s reporter on the education beat. To stay up to date on stories like these, you can sign up for her weekly roundup called Schooled at wng.org/newsletters.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Up next: teaching about race in public schools.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is touting a bill that requires schools to teach ethnic studies starting in kindergarten.

But a woman from Minneapolis recently testified against it and her comments went viral. Here’s part of what Kofi Montzka told Minnesota lawmakers:

KOFI MONTZKA: You may ask, ‘Why in the world would a black person speak against ethnic studies?’ Because not everything that sounds good is good.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s not good, Montzka said, because it tells kids of color that they are oppressed and systemically disadvantaged.

MONTZKA: I’m sick of everyone ignoring the progress we’ve made in this country pretending like it’s 1930. We used to have a race-based system. We got rid of it, and now you’re all trying to bring it back.

Kofi Montzka is an attorney and the mother of three boys. She joins us now. Kofi, thank you for joining us.

MONTZKA: Thank you.

REICHARD: When you said that this legislation is trying to bring back a race-based system, what did you mean by that?

MONTZKA: Well, the law differentiates between white people and people of color a lot, like I was shocked when I read it. You know, it talks about white people have it fine, but people of color are harmed by schools. White people are chronically favored in institutions and people of color are disadvantaged. They talk about stratification in this world based on on race, our legal system used to have a stratification based on race, and we don't have that anymore. And they're basically trying to make kids believe that we're living, they're living under Jim Crow when they're not.

REICHARD: Let’s talk about critical race theory. This legislation does seem to be injected with critical race theory, which has been a growing trend in many states. You’ve spoken out against critical race theory as well. What’s the problem with it?

MONTZKA: Well, it pits people against each other and causes a lot of unnecessary division. I wouldn't care about division if White people were truly oppressing us, then I would fight back and I wouldn't care about the division. But this causes an unnecessary division. It tells black kids that they're victims, and there's no reason to try. I can't help but think we've had an increase in carjackings with young kids of color. And I just I wonder if I would do the same thing, if I grew up under a system where I was told that you that you won't make it. I mean, I grew up I had a mom who was on crack. You know, my mom, my sister, and I lived in a one bedroom unit, we all shared a bed, I didn't think anything of it. We, you know, I had a lot of other trials as a kid. But I would go to school every day. And I was told by the school that no matter what your race, no matter what happens in society, your trials make you stronger, and you can make it, and the kids today are getting the opposite message. So I think CRT is bad.

REICHARD: Kofi, I know that you’re a Christian, a believer. How does your faith inform you about racial curriculums and what we should teach kids about race?

MONTZKA: Well, the Bible says it's the you know, your character and how you act and what you do, your fruit that matters. And with CRT, it seems like it's just your outward appearance. If you're white, you're born a racist, you're racist because your ancestors were racist, you're benefiting from it. And so just based on the color of your skin alone, you are bad. It's not based on what you do. And for black people, it just, it seems like like we can't address sin, we can't acknowledge anything they do that that is wrong. If anything happens in this world, it's racism. And we can't actually get at the root of the problem, we can't address that we have in Minneapolis, St. Paul, like 90% of black households are single parent households. We can't address that. All we can do for any of the problems is say racism. And so it's not compassion. These people think they're having compassion, but but it's not a biblical compassion. In the Bible with the woman caught in adultery, you know, Jesus said, who condemns you? And she said, "No, one Lord." And then Jesus said, "Neither do I." So Jesus is compassionate. But then we forget the last part, "Go and sin no more." We're missing that. We can't say that in society today to anybody. And in the end, it's hurting the black community more because we do have more single parent households, and it's just harder to make it but it's increasing in other groups, too, even in the white community, and it just has, has bad consequences.

REICHARD: Let’s talk specifics. Are there any other things in the bill that are harmful to people of color?

MONTZKA: Yeah, there's a part of the bill, this bill is it's terrible on so many fronts, but just a few other things that bothered me that are specifically related to people of color are suspensions. For the entire state of Minnesota, they are removing the ability of schools to suspend the kids. And so so it bothers me because they're lowering the standard, they said, the law is benign on race, it just says removing suspensions. But when I was at the hearing at the House, they specifically said, we're removing suspensions, because more black kids get suspended from schools than white kids. So we're just going to lower the standard for everyone. And I think lowering the bar for everyone, because of us, and everybody knows, it's because of us, it makes us look bad. And it tells black kids that we have very low expectations of them. And they can't behave as good as little white kids. It, it also hurts black kids the most. Because if it's black kids that are getting suspended a lot, and usually from school, from a classroom full of black kids, this teacher is going to have one disruptive black kid, and they're not going to be able to remove that kid and it's going to distract the teacher from teaching all of the other little black kids who are in the class trying to learn. So they act like this stuff is to help us. But really, we are the ones that are hurt the most. And they're not willing to do the hard, nuanced work of figuring out why there are more suspensions of black kids, what can we do to stop that, because in the end, they're going to end up in the criminal justice system, crying racism again, because we didn't figure out how to fix this at an early age. And the other one is they want more teachers of color, so they’re removing all testing to become a teacher in Minnesota, which makes us look dumb. And to me, it's racist on its face to even say that. They said that in the hearing, this is why we're removing this. And you can't help but wonder if the teachers can't pass the test, because we have such low achievement rates for reading and writing for kids of color in Minnesota. So of course, we're not going to be able to compete in the marketplace. And really, if we as people of color want to be thought of as equal, we want to have self-respect and the respect of others. The only way to do that is to live up to the same standards in society as everybody else. There's no substitute for that. None. None at all. And we can do it, we were created equal. And I wonder if people believe that or not? Why do you think you have to lower the bar? It really bothers me.

REICHARD: Okay, I'm gonna open the floor up here. Any other remarks or other observations, Kofi, that you'd like to make?

MONTZKA: Well, I just want people to wake up and not be so dumb. I'm sorry for using such simple language, but not everything that sounds good is good. You've got to dig deeper. And I really want people of color to push back against this because it truly hurts us more. So Frederick Douglass has this speech that he gave right before slaves were freed and it's called 'What shall be done with the slaves if emancipated?' So the slaves weren't even emancipated yet and he says "Our answer is do nothing with them. Mind your business, and let them mind theirs. Your doing with them is their greatest misfortune, they have been undone by your doings and all they ask now and really need at your hands is just that you leave them alone." But at the end of this, he gives the most hopeful message, he says, "Just treat the black man as an equal and a brother." And if yeah, if we could, if Frederick Douglass is saying we could make it back then when there was still slavery in place, then we can make it now.

REICHARD: We’ve been hearing from Kofi Montzka, who is part of Takechargemn.com, an organization to improve lives of people of color through faith, family, and education. Kofi, thanks so much!

MONTZKA: Thank you.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Well, it’s pothole season given that springtime is here.

All the wet weather in Los Angeles recently led Mayor Karen Bass to acknowledge a whole lot more potholes than usual. Nearly 20,000 repair requests just since the first of the year, and 18,000 of those fixed as of last week.

But one of those not repaired is in the former governor's neighborhood.

After three weeks of complaining, Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to fill it himself with help from friends.

The actor and former bodybuilder posted a video to Twitter of the action.

SOUND: [AUDIO FROM VIDEO]

During it, a driver rolls down her window to thank him.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: I saw somebody dubbed Schwarzenegger as “The Tar-minator.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Today is Thursday, April 13th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Paul Butler.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Rebuilding Africatown.

We first introduced you to the story of the historic Alabama town in 20-19: A group of West Africans formed the town, after being bought and transported against their will in 1860. The voyage was the last known illegal shipment of enslaved people to the United States.

BUTLER: Today, WORLD's Myrna Brown takes us back to Africatown, where an unlikely team is working to restore hearts and homes.

SOUND: [SAWING AND HAMMERING]

JUANITA RUFFIN: I am so grateful. I thank the Lord for letting them come out and do this.

MYRNA BROWN, CORRESPONDENT: Juanita Ruffin’s back yard looks and sounds like a construction zone. But the 63-year-old, silver-headed-grandma isn’t complaining.

CONSTRUCTION WORKER: Here’s some one by two’s in case you need them.

She smiles as she watches workers repair structural damage underneath the yellow, wood-frame house. It’s been her home since she was 12 years old.

SOUND: [SHEETROCKING, NAILING]

Across the street, Ruffin’s neighbor is having water-logged sheetrock replaced. And a few houses down, new floors are being installed…all by complete strangers.

JUANITA RUFFIN: No, never seen them before. But they so friendly.

SOUND: [WORKER WHISTLING WHILE WORKING]

The unfamiliar, but spirited crew of volunteers are retired firefighters, law enforcement, and construction workers. All of them, like Ruffin, have been on the receiving end of compassion.

JAMES EARL: I was a lieutenant in Special Operations and we worked extensively at the World Trade Center after the attacks in 2001.

That's project manager, James Earl. He was a New York City firefighter during the 9-11 attacks.

JAMES EARL: And after we retired we wanted to give back some of the love that we’d been shown in our own catastrophe and we had people from all over the country come and help us out. So when we retired we said, we gotta keep doing this. And we’re still doing it.

Half of Earl’s crew is from New York. The other half, from Florida. In 2007, the nonprofit organization Heart 9-11 began deploying first responders and other volunteers to serve whenever and wherever the need arose.

EARL: We went to Ecuador after the earthquake. We went to Haiti after the earthquake. We went to Puerto Rico after the hurricanes. We built numerous homes for wounded veterans.

Today they’re helping to rebuild Ruffin’s hometown: Africatown. The historic community is north of Mobile, Alabama.

James Earl remembers reading about Africatown, the growth of the community in the 1950’s and its decline two decades later. But what captured his attention was the work one of his favorite Major League Baseball players was doing to rebuild the community.

EARL: I grew up in Queens, New York. Home of the 1969 World Champion New York Mets and one of the guys I watched run around left field was Cleon Jones.

After his baseball career ended, Cleon Jones returned to Africatown, his hometown. Residents like Juanita Ruffin were still there, but the Africatown Jones knew was now littered with vacant lots, abandoned businesses and dilapidated housing. That’s when he started The Last Out Community Foundation. In 20-22, James Earl reached out to Jones to see how Heart 9-11 could help.

EARL: And I said, that sounds like what we do, except he’s doing it in his neighborhood and we go to other neighborhoods.

80-year-old Jones gladly accepted Earl's invitation to help rebuild Africatown, even if it did come with the promise of a few signed autographs.

SOUND: [CONSTRUCTION]

Former New York City Battalion Fire Chief Bo Bohack was one of the first to sign up for the Africatown rebuild. Today he’s pulling old sheetrock from a bedroom wall.

BO BOHACK: I’m here, serving my fellow man. Plus meeting a legend like Cleon, that kind of helps. That’s a draw, you know. Do you remember him. Oh yeah, he was one of my idols. Oh absolutely.

Fellow New Yorker and Carpenter Silkey Williams was right behind him.

SILKEY WILLIAMS: I never know anything about Africatown and I was very interested to find out what’s going on down here.

And Florida crew member James Breedlove says he shut down his Tampa construction company for the week to join the work in Africatown.

JAMES BREEDLOVE: This is the give back for all God has blessed us with, you know.

SOUND: [What time can they come.]

As Cleon Jones and James Earl make plans to finish restoring the rest of the homes on their list, Earl knows there’s so much more to be done.

EARL: I’ve fixed houses like this before and there is no finish line. Every piece of wood you take off, there’s two more behind it that’s broken.

But he says he’s thankful for all they've accomplished together.

EARL: I just laugh. Here’s a bunch of white boys from New York and some from Florida and we’re coming down here and working in a totally black area, with a very deep south slave ship history, which was amazing. I never heard of. There's more that unites us than divides us.

Leaning on her chain link fence and watching her new friends continue to work underneath her home, Juanita Ruffin agrees.

MYRNA TO JUANITA: Touches your heart doesn’t it? Yes, it do.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Myrna Brown in Africatown, Alabama.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Today is Thursday, April 13th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Paul Butler.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Today, we step back to the year 1986. A year in which the top music single featured Dionne Warwick:

MUSIC: [For sure, that’s what friends are for.]

1986 was also the year we witnessed a horrific rocket explosion. Audio from the History Channel:

VIDEO CLIP: [Challenger, go with throttle up. It was like a blow to the gut of the nation.]

And in the White House, President Ronald Reagan, a Republican who faced opposition from Soviet Russia as well as Congressional Democrats, men like Tip O’Neill.

BUTLER: And yet, President Reagan avoided bitterness and modeled a humble approach to leadership.

Here’s WORLD commentator Cal Thomas.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: Those of us longing for a more civil approach than today’s political warfare should take note of a speech given by President Ronald Reagan at a dinner on March 17, 1986, St. Patrick’s Day. Reagan was there to help honor Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O’Neill.

RONALD REAGAN: [APPLAUSE] Reverend clergy, Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker, Ladies and gentlemen.

Reagan invoked his and O’Neill’s Irish ancestry, but he did more than that. Reagan spoke of a man he respected and even admired in spite of their political differences. As has been frequently noted, they often worked out those differences over drinks at the White House.

Reagan began his remarks as usual with a couple of jokes:

REAGAN: “To be honest, I’ve always known that Tip was behind me, even if it was only at the State of the Union Address. As I made each proposal, I could hear Tip whispering to the George Bush, ‘no way, forget it, fat chance.” [loud laughter and applause]

There is a kindness in Reagan on display at the event, even when he was kidding and especially when he kidded O’Neill.

Reagan used self-deprecating humor about his age just as he’d done to great success in his 1984 debate with Walter Mondale. Reagan claimed Tip “said since it was March 17, it was only fitting that someone drop by who had actually known St. Patrick.”

Of course, the two had been kidding each other for some time, and Reagan said he hoped that would continue for years to come. Then he said something unheard of in today’s political discourse:

REAGAN: A little kidding is after all a sign of affection, the sort of thing that friends do to each other. And, Mr. Speaker, I’m grateful you have permitted me in the past, and I hope in the future, that singular honor, the honor of calling you my friend. [APPLAUSE]

Can anyone hear Donald Trump or any other candidate for or in public office saying things like that in 2023?

Reagan went on to make an important point that seems to have been lost between then and now:

REAGAN: I think the fact of our friendship is testimony to the political system we’re part of and the country we live in, a country that permits two not so shy and not so retiring Irishmen to have it out on the issues, rather than have it out on each other, or their countrymen.

Reagan said he saluted O’Neill for his “years of dedication and devotion to the country.” He said he had been a “vital and forceful part of America’s political tradition, a tradition that he has truly enriched.”

Kindness and praise for one’s political opponent can affect others, especially voters. As President Abraham Lincoln said about the South: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”

Is anyone listening?

I’m Cal Thomas.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Tomorrow: Culture Friday with John Stonestreet.

And, WORLD Arts and Media Editor Collin Garbarino reviews two new movies.

That and more tomorrow. I’m Paul Butler.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says that Apostle Paul entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. Acts chapter 19, verses 8 through 10.

Go now in grace and peace.

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