The World and Everything in It - April 22, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

We’re hearing about bad side effects to the Covid vaccines. How does the tracking system work, and how reliable are the reports?

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: Also a small Christian college is suing the Biden administration. We’ll tell you why.

Plus, listening to the sounds of God’s creation.

And commentator Cal Thomas on when laws aren’t enough.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, April 22nd. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BASHAM: And I’m Megan Basham. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Jill Nelson with today’s news.

JILL NELSON, REPORTER: DOJ launches probe into Minneapolis police » The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into policing practices in Minneapolis. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland made the announcement Wednesday.

GARLAND: The investigation I am announcing today will assess whether the Minneapolis police department engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force, including during protests. The investigation will also assess whether the MPD engages in discriminatory conduct, and whether its treatment of those with behavioral health disabilities is unlawful.

The announcement came less than 24 hours after a Minneapolis jury convicted former police officer Derek Chauvin of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he welcomed the investigation as “an opportunity to continue working toward deep change and accountability in the Minneapolis Police Department.”

The state’s Department of Human Rights is also reviewing the department’s policies and practices. It’s looking for evidence of systemic discrimination during the last 10 years.

White House pushes for federal police reform act » Meanwhile in Washington, President Biden is pushing Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

BIDEN: As we saw in this trial from the fellow officers who testified, most men and women who wear the badge serve their communities honorably. But those few who fail to meet that standard must be held accountable.

The bill would ban restraining techniques like the chokehold used against Floyd. It would also ban no-knock warrants and end qualified immunity. That’s the policy that protects law enforcement officers from most civil lawsuits. And it would create a national registry for police misconduct.

But because police departments are local entities, the bill cannot force them to comply. Instead, it ties federal funding to measures it wants departments to adopt.

Congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana said he thought some measures could win bipartisan support. But he criticized House Democrats for passing the bill in March without any effort to gain Republican support.

SCALISE: You look at what the Democrats have proposed, and it’s things like taking away qualified immunity. That is defunding police in a different way. You talk to good cops all across the country. They say if they’re exposed in that kind of way, they won’t stay in law enforcement. You won’t be able to recruit good police officers.

The qualified immunity provision in particular is a sticking point for Republicans. But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he’s not giving up on the bill.

SCHUMER: We will not rest until the Senate passes strong legislation to end the systemic bias in law enforcement.

Ohio police shooting under investigation » The Ohio Attorney General’s Office is investigating a police shooting in Columbus that left a teenage girl dead.

Body camera footage released Wednesday appears to show the teen attacking two other women with a knife before an officer shoots her.

Interim Columbus Police Chief Michael Woods said the officer would be taken off patrol while the department conducts a criminal investigation.

WOODS: Deadly force can be used to protect yourself or the protection of a third person. So that is within the policy and that is within the law. That is what the law says. Whether this complies with that, will be part of that investigation.

Family members identified the teen as 15-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant. Police were responding to a 9-1-1 call about a girl attacking others with a knife. It wasn’t immediately clear Wednesday who made that call.

Putin threatens West in annual address »

SOUND: CLAPPING, MUSIC

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave his annual state-of-the-nation address Wednesday.

PUTIN: SPEAKING RUSSIAN

In it, he warned Western nations against crossing a “red line in respect to Russia.” Putin claimed Moscow wants good relationships with all members of the international community. But he said Russia’s response would be “asymmetrical, quick and tough” for any country that interferes in what he called the country’s core national security interests.

That is likely a reference to Russia’s troop buildup on its border with Ukraine. The Kremlin has dismissed concerns expressed by the United States and others about possible military action. Cease-fire violations in the seven-year conflict between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces have escalated in recent weeks.

Judge orders LA to address homelessness » A federal judge has ordered Los Angeles to find housing for all of the homeless people now camped on Skid Row. WORLD’s Paul Butler reports.

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: Judge David O. Carter gave the city and Los Angeles county 180 days to come up with shelter for the more than 66,000 people now living on the streets. Women and children must have housing within 90 days.

The order came a day after LA Mayor Eric Garcetti pledged to spend nearly $1 billion dollars over the next year to address the problem. Carter ordered Garcetti to put that money in an escrow account. And he gave the mayor seven days to come up with a plan for spending it.

The judge’s ruling stems from a lawsuit filed last year by a group of business owners, residents and community leaders. It accuses the city and county of failing to address the desperation that homeless people face.

Garcetti said he shared the judge’s sense of urgency but didn’t know whether his proposed solution was feasible. An attorney representing LA County said it might appeal.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

And I’m Jill Nelson.

Straight ahead: tracking problems with vaccines.

Plus, Cal Thomas on stopping our epidemic of violence.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday, April 22nd, 2021.

You’re listening to The World and Everything in It and we’re so glad you’ve joined us today! Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: And I’m Megan Basham.

First up: tracking the side effects of vaccines.

Federal health officials put the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine on hold earlier this month. Reports linked the shot to a series of rare but life-threatening blood clots. The CDC and FDA have completed investigations and are set to decide tomorrow whether to clear the vaccine for continued use.

Still, the pause amplified fears about side effects of the vaccine. And many people wonder how health experts track safety problems. One official database in particular is raising a lot of questions. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown reports now on how it works.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: If you’ve been on social media lately, you might have heard something like this.

SOT: And nobody is telling us how bad this vaccine is, how bad the side effects are. Patient received COVID-19 vaccine 1/9, died 1/17.

This Instagram user is reading reports from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, or VAERS.

SOT: Cardiac arrest patient found pulseless and breathless 20 minutes following the vaccine administration.

He isn’t wrong. Those reports do show up on VAERS, an official government database. But do they actually prove that COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous?

JENKINS: The vaccine adverse support report system is really a public database. So anyone can actually submit any reaction to a vaccine to it.

This is Zach Jenkins. He’s an associate professor of pharmacy at Cedarville University and a clinical specialist in infectious diseases. VAERS is technically run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. But medical professionals aren’t the only ones submitting reports to it.

JENKINS: Problem with VAERS is that because it's a public database, and anyone can input anything, you end up with entries that still exist today, like someone's saying a vaccine turned them into the Incredible Hulk.

In other words, what you see on VAERS is completely unfiltered.

Susan Ellenberg is a professor of biostatistics, medical ethics, and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania. She’s pretty blunt about VAERS’ limitations.

ELLENBERG: When I was working with this at the FDA, I would say this is the worst possible database anybody would ever have to try and analyze.

Why? Well, not everybody thinks to report side effects, especially if they don’t expect the vaccine to have any. Some people assume their symptoms are a separate issue. So on the one hand, VAERS vastly underestimates the number of adverse events.

But on the other hand, it also overestimates.

ELLENBERG: The numbers that are in the system are the numbers that got reported. They don’t reflect things that are definitely related to a vaccine.

There’s no guarantee that the vaccine caused the reported result. It might have been a separate issue, or a previous health concern. In VAERS, some reports say a person died a few days after getting the COVID vaccine, but that person also had cancer. And the report doesn’t list the actual cause of death.

To disqualify a vaccine, the CDC and FDA have to prove “clear biological plausibility.” In other words, a direct link: The vaccine does X and the result is Y.

Reports to VAERS tend to spike any time a vaccine gets a lot of publicity. People start to connect dots they might not have thought of before. And according to Susan Ellenberg, that’s not a bad thing. People should be aware of potential side effects so they can weigh the risks and make a decision for themselves.

ELLENBERG: We know that there's no such thing as a medical intervention that doesn't have, you know, any possible side effects at all.

Ellenberg recalls a case in 1999, when the FDA approved a vaccine to prevent rotavirus in infants. The clinical trials were pretty small.

ELLENBERG: There were a few cases of intussusception. Intussusception is a means the bowel gets twisted up. But it wasn't clear that there was really an excess of cases. But we did put it in the label as something to possibly watch out for. And in fact, after the vaccine got approved, a number of cases of intussusception were reported to the vaccine adverse event reporting system.

Researchers looked into those cases and determined that yes, actually, the vaccine did cause that complication. So after about a year of having the vaccine on the market, the FDA scrapped it completely.

When it comes to the new COVID vaccines, even some doctors are concerned about long-term risks, side effects that haven’t shown up in clinical trials.

RYAN COLE: The long term safety data is not there.

Dr. Ryan Cole is a board certified pathologist and runs a diagnostic lab in Idaho. Here he is speaking at a forum hosted by Idaho’s lieutenant governor.

COLE: I’m not anti Vax, not tinfoil hat. I’ve had lots of vaccines. My kids have had vaccines, that’s fine…

But he has concerns about COVID vaccines.

COLE: We have never done this on a large scale in human history. mRNA trials in mammals have led to odd cancers. mRNA trials on mammals have led to autoimmune diseases. Not right away, 6, 9, 12 months later.

Zach Jenkins at Cedarville University doesn’t agree with that view, because, he says, most side effects do show up within about six weeks. But he understands why some people are concerned or feel like they aren’t being told the whole truth. Articles raising questions about vaccine safety have been removed from social media platforms.

JENKINS: There's definitely been deplatforming that's gone on. And that, in my opinion, sends absolutely the wrong message whenever we do something like that.

He encourages people to talk to their own medical providers about their worries.

JENKINS: Talk with people who've actually read the primary literature and can interpret what that information means, what the bias was in the studies, whether it was influenced by any outside politics, that sort of thing. Have conversations with those individuals because I think they can give you a pretty honest answer about things.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: college dorms.

Remember when dorm assignments were still based on biology? Well, they’re not any more in most cases, unless you go to a Christian college. On those campuses, young men and young women still stay in different buildings.

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: But the Biden administration wants to change that. Back in February, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a directive barring so-called discrimination in housing based on sexual orientation and gender identity. And it applies to private colleges and universities as well as public ones.

Last week, the College of the Ozarks, a Christian college in Point Lookout, Missouri, challenged the mandate in court. It claims the government exceeded its authority and violated the school’s constitutionally protected freedoms.

REICHARD: And full disclosure here: I taught some classes at College of the Ozarks several years ago.

Joining us now to talk about the case is Steve West. He’s a lawyer who writes about religious liberty issues for WORLD Digital. Good morning, Steve!

STEVE WEST, REPORTER: Good morning, Mary!

REICHARD: So the federal government is directing who lives in dorms. So what triggered this directive and what’s it based on?

WEST: It does seem the federal government is into everything we do sometimes. Here, the Department of Housing and Urban Development—HUD—is acting on something President Biden did on his very first day in office. He signed an executive order that requires federal agencies to fight discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. And he said to do it “as soon as practicable.” That’s lawyer language for “get busy.”

REICHARD: Help us understand the legal basis for this.

WEST: Well, the legal basis is debatable, and that’s where litigation over the directive will probably focus. Presidents can and do issue lots of executive orders, but they can’t change the law. They mostly affect how laws are enforced.

We can trace the executive order and HUD’s directive to last year’s Supreme Court decision in the case called Bostock v. Clayton County. The majority decided that the law that bars discrimination in employment based on sex would now also extend to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act had never been interpreted that way before.

In dissent, Justice Samuel Alito predicted this ruling wouldn’t stay confined to the employment realm. We see now he was right; now we’re talking dorm living.

REICHARD: College of the Ozarks is small, around 1,400 students. Is it the only school challenging the directive?

WEST: To my knowledge, at this point they are alone in challenging the HUD directive. But as other Christian colleges that take the same position on sexuality and marriage are in the same position, I expect we may see other colleges pile on or, at least, weigh in by friend of the court briefs—as will LGBTQ advocacy groups.

REICHARD: Steve, this case is about dorm life and College of the Ozarks seeking to respect the differences between men and women. But as we say, the law doesn’t always stay confined to its first purposes. Do you think the directive will spill over to college sports as well?

WEST: It already has. The Biden administration has also taken the position that the bar on sex discrimination in Title IX of the Civil Rights Act also extends to sexual orientation and gender identity. (Title IX is about education, just as Title VII is about employment.) So with Title IX, Biden’s position means men with gender dysphoria—biological males who identify as women—can compete against women on their sports teams. It means biological males will have a right to share female locker rooms and bathrooms. So right there you see how this executive order is rippling through the federal agencies.

REICHARD: Many times these federal mandates are tied to federal funds. The government will say, you take tax money? You do what we say. A few private colleges don’t take any government money, so they don’t have to worry about these types of orders. But this new order is different, and still affects them, correct?

WEST: That’s right. The Fair Housing Act isn’t tied to the government’s spending power. It’s tied to its ability to regulate interstate commerce, and that is a broadly interpreted phrase. So the same law that applies to apartment complex owners and landlords applies to colleges and universities that offer housing.

REICHARD: What’s the timeline for the lawsuit brought by College of the Ozarks against the government?

WEST: The lawsuit was just filed Thursday, but as the college asked for a temporary restraining order, the court should set a hearing within a matter of days to decide if implementation of the directive should be temporarily halted. Next step would be a preliminary injunction, which could put a stop to it until the trial of the matter. But regardless of what ultimately happens in this case, it won’t end here. Those justices that were in the majority in the Bostock case will have to step up and make good on their promise to protect religious freedom.

REICHARD: Steve West writes about religious liberty for WORLD Digital. You can read more of his work and sign up for the weekly Liberties newsletter at wng.org. Thanks, Steve!

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Sometimes stopping for gas is just a hassle. Like when you’re running late, you look down and see the needle on “E.”

Well, Ford Motor Company and a startup in Dubai are teaming up to solve that problem. It starts with an app on a smartphone, which can help get most anything delivered these days.

So why not fuel?

SOUND: Lincoln Navigator will be refueled. Please select the vehicle location.

You can just pull up an app in the car’s info-tainment system, tell the app where you’re parked, and a fuel truck comes to the rescue!

At the moment, though, this service is only available in parts of the United Arab Emirates. So you’ll have to pump your own gas a little while longer.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, April 22nd.

This is WORLD Radio and we thank you for listening.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: And I’m Megan Basham.

Well, today is dubbed Earth Day on our calendars. It’s a day to think about creating a sustainable place for all living things.

When you think of God’s creation, what comes to mind?

REICHARD: My home state of Missouri. Animals, sunsets, hills, wildflowers...

BASHAM: All amazing sights. But Creation includes the world’s sounds as well!

Today, WORLD correspondent Jenny Rough talks with two men about the music of our planet Earth.

One, an acoustic ecologist. The other, a theology professor. Let’s listen.

JENNY ROUGH, REPORTER: Stop for a second and listen. What do you hear beyond my voice? Traffic from a distant highway? Television? A washing machine? A hair dryer? Perhaps the chime of a clock—or text messages. The buzz of fluorescent lights?

Chances are, you are immersed in noise. And according to Gordon Hempton, all that loud, artificial sound is detrimental to your body and soul.

GORDON HEMPTON: That noise is a problem. A health problem and a spiritual problem.

Repeated exposure to power tools, sirens, children’s toys is also linked to hearing loss.

HEMPTON: There’s no such thing as ear lids like there are eyelids.

Hempton is an acoustic ecologist—better known as the Sound Tracker. He searches the world for natural soundscapes. Unlike man-made noise, nature sounds are good for your health.

SOUND: PIPESTONE CANYON

Sigh. Much better.

But for many, the tie to nature has been cut. Fifty-five percent of the world’s population lives in an urbanized environment, disconnected from forests, canyons, rivers, and wetlands.

Earth’s sounds are beautiful and complex.

SOUND: WILLIE WAGTAIL

Travel in the direction of a chirping bird, and you’ll likely be led to food, water, and a favorable habitat.

HEMPTON: Our ears are actually more closely tuned to hear birdsong than even the human voice.

Birdsong prompted Hempton’s work. During a difficult time in his life, he felt so depressed he wanted to crawl into a hole and die. But one day—outside his window—he heard the cheery notes of a Pacific wren.

SOUND: PACIFIC WREN

HEMPTON: I literally stood up from what I had wished would be my deathbed and said, “Oh, my God, the Earth is singing. And I knew that I had to record it.

Christ told his followers to consider the birds of the air. Other Bible passages also say the world has something to communicate.

STEVE GUTHRIE: So when it says in Psalm 19, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” there is something spiritually valuable to actually listening to the world that God has made.

Steve Guthrie is a professor at Belmont University. He studies the theology of sound.

GUTHRIE: Evangelicals talk a lot about taking scripture seriously and believing the truth of scripture. So when the Bible says, in various places, you know, that the created world testifies to God, then I think it’s worth venturing out on that a little bit.

SOUND: THUNDER

Heed the roll of thunder, Guthrie says. The call of wild frogs.

SOUND: FROGS

GUTHRIE: There’s a wonderful hymn, “This Is My Father’s World,” and it has that line in it, “In the rustling grass I hear Him pass, He speaks to me everywhere.”

On the first day of spring, Guthrie sits on a bench on Belmont’s campus. The sun arches across the sky, trees cover the quad, and a hum fills the air. Not a honeybee hive. Not the fast-beating wings of a hummingbird.

SOUND: AIR CONDITIONER

Air conditioner hum. The lack of access to a quiet place reminds Guthrie of a late Jesuit priest named Walter Ong:

GUTHRIE: There’s a great quote from him when he said: Could it be that God has not fallen silent, but that humanity, in our century, has grown deaf, our ears always attuned to the sound of our own making?

In other words:

GUTHRIE: Always being surrounded by human built environment and human sounds reinforces this idea that we are the makers of our own world. That there is not any voice in creation other than our own voice.

Guthrie says listening to the natural world reminds us of God’s providential and caregiving activity.

GUTHRIE: Job 12, verses 7 to 10: “But ask the beasts, and they will teach you, the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you...Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In His hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.”

But it raises the question: Do we even know the sounds of the world?

SOUND: COYOTE

Hempton has collected sounds from around the globe. Like coyote. Recognize any more?

SOUND: WAVES

Micro surf.

SOUND: AMERICAN PRAIRIE

An American Prairie.

SOUND: SNOW MELT

Snow melt. Just as certain smells trigger memory and emotions, sounds can too. Who hasn’t spent a starry summer night around a campfire?

SOUND: CAMPFIRE

Quiet places are hard to find. In the United States, they’re very rare east of the Mississippi. Hempton says that’s because the tall stacks of coal-burning plants are like giant flutes playing a low frequency sound that travels far and wide.

HEMPTON: So much so, that at last count here in the United States there were only a dozen places where it was possible to have a noise-free experience, a purely natural experience, for longer than 15 minutes at a time during sunrise.

And this is personal for Hempton. He’s going deaf. He experiences bouts of profound hearing loss. A search for a medical diagnosis turned up nothing. Despite his impairment, he continues his quest. Assistants work beside him to help him record. And Hempton has watched each one be transformed by the world’s soundscape. Hempton says there is a bigger lesson we all need to learn.

HEMPTON: We have lost something even more precious than our hearing. And that is our ability to listen.

SOUND: HUMPBACK WHALE SONG

MUSIC: THIS IS MY FATHER’S WORLD PERFORMED BY DAVID IM

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Rough.

Coming up next, a preview of Listening In. This week, a conversation with author Collin Hansen. He’s the vice president and editor-in-chief of The Gospel Coalition.

Over the last 20 years, Americans report more and more feelings of anxiety and hopelessness. Hansen says these problems have many causes, yet the Gospel gives the one answer we need.

Host Warren Smith begins their conversation diagnosing the problem.

WARREN SMITH: What is causing the current malaise? What are the sources of anxiety in our current time?

COLLIN HANSEN: I think it is more anxious, which is remarkable because our circumstances are better. So how can our circumstances, our wealth, our health, even in a pandemic, I mean, if we're talking, going back in human history, we still live in a remarkably privileged time. And I don't think anybody would trade going back to any other time for the comforts and the affluence and all that, that so many people around the world enjoy. This is not just a Western phenomenon any longer.

And yet, at the same time, we do see a spike in anxiety. And part of it is simple because the belief in God is on the decline. And so if you don't think there's any bigger purpose to what's happening, there's no afterlife to rectify justice, then there is a lot to be really, really worried about.

And one of the things I've learned from Tim Keller as he talks about the rise of theodicy in the West over the last few centuries, and this question of why is God doing this? Why is God allowing this to happen? Well, interestingly, it was not a common question before, it was simply taken for granted that there are reasons for why things happen, even if we don't understand them.

And so the response of anxiety and anger was not natural for a lot of people, even in times when they saw so much more death and difficulty and conflict than we do today. So I think you're seeing a big, long term philosophical change that coincides with the rise of forms of secularism. And then I have to add that I think there's a huge technological dimension to what we're seeing as well and I think you could date it, basically to the smartphone.

That’s Collin Hansen talking to Warren Smith. To hear their complete conversation, look for Listening In tomorrow wherever you get your podcasts.

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: Today is Thursday, April 22nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Megan Basham.

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

Commentator Cal Thomas now on why no amount of law will stop America’s problem with violence.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: The first question most people ask after mass shootings like the one last week at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis is "how did the attacker get his gun?" He was known to authorities. Police had previously seized a gun he owned over concerns about his mental health.

So, how did he manage to legally purchase two guns last summer, three and four months after the first gun was seized? His mother had already told police her son wanted officers to kill him.

The second question: What could or should have been done to prevent the tragedy?

The third question: Can anything be done to prevent future incidents like this, which are happening with greater frequency?

We have heard these questions—and more—asked after previous acts of carnage. But we never get satisfactory answers. At least not in ways that produce results capable of protecting innocent people.

President Biden said this following the Indianapolis shooting:

BIDEN: It is a national embarrassment, what's going on. And it's not only these mass shootings that are occurring. Every single day, every single day, there's a mass shooting in the United States if you count all those who are killed out on the streets of our cities and our rural areas. It's a national embarrassment and must come to an end.

Who can credibly disagree with that? It IS a national embarrassment, but the larger question is how to fix it?

After the Indianapolis shooter’s mother called to warn police about her son, the FBI began an investigation. FBI Special Agent in Charge Paul Keenan indicated the focus was on the teenager's political beliefs, not his mental condition. That appears to have been a serious error.

The default position for the president and other progressive politicians seems to be to call for more gun control laws. They never say how laws would deter someone with the intent to murder from acquiring a weapon. People intent on murder will find a way, no matter how many laws are passed. The prisons are full of inmates for whom laws did not act as a deterrent.

We live in a violent culture that does not honor the sacredness of human life. From abortion to shootings in the streets of our major cities, life has become cheap and easily disposable.

If a political leader can come up with a law that will reverse the cultural rot that has diminished life's value, I will enthusiastically endorse it. In the interim, we need a greater emphasis on people with mental health problems and efforts that keep them from obtaining firearms. Strengthening laws that allow authorities to detain such people for longer periods and forcing them to get necessary treatment, would be a good start.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet joins us to talk about the George Floyd verdict. That’s for Culture Friday.

And, I’ve been hearing a lot of rumbling about how depressing Oscar movies have become in recent years. So, in honor of the Academy Awards on Sunday, I’ll have a pick of an Oscar-winning movie that is as smart and serious as it is entertaining.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Megan Basham.

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

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

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