The World and Everything in It: April 24, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. Hi, I’m Grace Norcott, I live in the small community of Newark in upstate New York. I hope you enjoy today’s program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The Supreme Court considers whether inconvenience to the boss is enough to deny an employee a Sabbath day.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Legal Docket.

Also today the Monday Moneybeat: a proposed new banking regulation. Will it make the banks safer, or just make the government feel better?

And the WORLD History Book.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, April 24th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Time now for the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Sudan » Chaos in Sudan as rival generals continue warring with no end in sight. Foreign governments rushed to evacuate diplomats, staff, and others over the weekend as Sudanese armed forces battled a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces.

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner:

MARK WARNER: First of all, we ought to commend the military and the intelligence community for getting our diplomatic personnel out. That was a dangerous mission to take them out by helicopter.

Retired Marine Col. Steve Ganyard explains just how dangerous:

STEVE GANYARD: Three special operations Chinooks flying 800 miles at 100 feet at night on night vision goggles, having to land halfway, get gas, come into Khartoum, where there’s active combat going on.

While world powers like the United States and Britain airlifted their diplomats from the capital of Khartoum. Many Sudanese citizens are risking dangerous roads to cross the northern border into Egypt.

Many had hoped for a cease-fire to coincide with a major Muslim holiday, but the bullets kept flying.

More than 400 people have been killed, most of them civilians.

Debt limit debate » In Washington, the debate over lifting the nation’s debt limit rages on.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy:

KEVIN MCCARTHY: This is a president that has ignored one of the greatest crises we have before us, our fiscal problem. Every great nation has collapsed when they’ve overextended themselves.

President Biden’s budget, which he unveiled last month, would add nearly $20 trillion dollars to the national debt over a decade.

Republicans say they want to rein in overspending before authorizing the government to borrow trillions more.

McCarthy drafted a 320-page bill that would raise the debt ceiling while cutting spending.

But Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingel countered:

DEBBIE DINGEL: I want to be very clear that raising the debt ceiling is a separate discussion from spending. It is making sure that we pay our bills.

Top Democrats charge that Republicans are being fiscally irresponsible by risking default on US debts.

Hutchinson slams DeSantis » GOP White House hopeful Asa Hutchinson took a swipe Sunday at one of his expected rivals.

The former Arkansas governor criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for an ongoing clash with Disney.

ASA HUTCHINSON: Government should not be telling businesses what they can and cannot do in terms of speech.

He said DeSantis appears to be retaliating against Disney for its decision to side with LGBT activists against a parental rights law.

But DeSantis said Disney was enjoying unprecedented privileges and subsidies, and controlled its own private local government. He said the company was exempt from rules that its competitors have to follow, and that’s not free enterprise.

RON DESANTIS: But it’s certainly even worse when a company takes all those privileges that have been bestowed over many, many decades and uses that to wage war over state policy regarding families and children.

He said Florida taxpayers were essentially subsidizing Disney’s pro-LGBT activism.

New polls » DeSantis is expected to announce a presidential bid sometime over the summer.

And recent polls are a mixed bag for the governor.

A new NBC poll found that most Americans don’t to see want Donald Trump or President Biden on the ballot again.

70% said they don’t think Biden should run. And about 60 percent said they don’t think Trump should have launched another White House bid.

But an average of recent Republican primary polls still gives Trump a 25-point edge over second-place DeSantis.

Chevy recall » General Motors is recalling roughly 40,000 of its Chevy Silverado trucks. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The recall comes after the company discovered a potential brake fluid leak that could spark fires while the truck is moving or parked.

The model covers some medium-duty Silverado models from the year 2019 or later.

G.M. says owners of affected models should park them away from buildings. The company says it is not aware of any injuries related to the leak.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

WWII ship discovered » A team of explorers from Australia and the Netherlands have discovered a sunken Japanese ship from World War II.

The team found the Montevideo Maru in the South China Sea. The ship was transporting more than 1,000 allied prisoners of war when a U.S. submarine torpedoed it.

Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defense Richard Marles:

RICHARD MARLES: This tragedy saw the single biggest loss of life of Australians at sea in our history. And since then, the absence of a location of the Montevideo Maru has represented unfinished business for the families of those who lost their lives, until now. When finally, those families have closure.

Those involved with the ship’s discovery say no efforts will be made to remove artifacts or human remains from the ship out of respect for the families of those who died.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead, A Christian mailman comes to the Supreme Court. Plus: the Monday Moneybeat.

This is The World and Everything In It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Monday, April 24th, 2023. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s time now for Legal Docket.

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court have been busy of late, and not only with wrangling over abortion drugs: It handed down five opinions over the last 10 days; three of them about the power to hear and decide a case in federal courts. In legal parlance, the term is jurisdiction.

REICHARD: We’ll quickly run through those three jurisdiction disputes.

First, a unanimous win for Mall of America in its dispute with a former tenant.

Sears had leased space in the mall. After it filed for reorganization bankruptcy in 2018, Sears transferred its lease to another company, and a bankruptcy court okayed that. The question was whether appellate courts have jurisdiction to hear objections. The answer from all nine justices is yes. Case remanded for further proceedings.

EICHER: Alright, second unanimous opinion in another jurisdiction dispute.

This one involves a company that makes tasers and body cameras for police and military use, Axon Enterprise. Not the energy company Exxon, this is Axon. It acquired a failing competitor that the Federal Trade Commission said violated antitrust law. So Axon brought a constitutional challenge to what the FTC was doing—trying to make the case that the FTC was abusing its power.

Axon lost in the lower courts, because it hadn’t jumped through all the agency hoops first, before going to the courts.

But the justices ruled that agencies are not empowered to decide whether their own procedures are constitutional. That is a task for the courts.

REICHARD: In the third jurisdiction case, the federal government went after a bank owned by the Republic of Turkey in a criminal prosecution for money laundering. In its defense, the bank argued the law granting federal courts jurisdiction does not apply to foreign governments.

But a majority of seven justices said that law does apply in criminal prosecutions. Still, the case is remanded so the lower court can decide whether the bank has immunity under other principles such as common law.

EICHER: So those are the three opinions dealing with the question of jurisdiction. In all three cases, the parties who want to proceed with a lawsuit in federal court can do so because the federal courts have, as we have been talking about, jurisdiction.

REICHARD: The fourth opinion the court handed down is a win for a man on death row. Rodney Reed filed a challenge to the death penalty based on an item from the crime scene that wasn’t tested for his DNA.

He’s on death row for the murder of Stacey Stites. Reed claims he’s innocent…that he was in a consensual relationship with Stites. And that Stites’ fiancé, police officer Jimmy Fennell, is the real killer. Here’s Reed’s lawyer at oral argument:

PARKER RIDER-LONGMAID: Mr. Reed has a stay of execution from the Texas courts on his ninth subsequent habeas petition before the courts where he raised evidence that Fennell admitted to killing Stites because he discovered she was sleeping with a black man, that Fennell threatened to kill Stites if he caught her cheating, that Fennell made inculpatory statements at Stites' funeral and that Fennell and Stites' relationship was fraught.

When denied testing on the item, Reed sued in federal court, arguing that the Texas DNA law is unconstitutional. But the Fifth Circuit said he missed the two-year deadline to file.

The majority justices reversed, saying Texas got the timeline wrong. Texas started the time clock as soon as the state trial court denied the DNA testing request. But that’s not how it works: the clock starts ticking only whenall state appeals are over.

EICHER: And now for the final opinion of the day: a win for New Jersey. Seventy years ago, New Jersey and New York entered a contract to deal with crime at the states’ shared port. New Jersey wants to end the contract. New York doesn’t. The contract’s express terms are silent about whether a party can terminate. To resolve the dispute, the Supreme Court applied general contract law principles and found in favor of New Jersey.

So, that brings us up to date on court opinions. Now we’ll turn to two oral arguments the court heard recently. For that, our Washington, D.C., legal correspondent Jenny Rough will take it from here.

JENNY ROUGH: Last Tuesday morning, the sidewalks outside the Supreme Court seemed calm. Minimal crowds. Quiet conversation. A sunny, peaceful spring day. It almost felt restful. Fitting, given that the court heard a case about a former postal worker who wants to honor the Sabbath. Rest on Sundays, instead of work.

AARON STREETT: Hardison's de minimis test makes a mockery of the English language, and no party truly defends it today.

Aaron Streett represented Gerald Groff and argued the court should abandon an old test: Hardison’s de minimis test. Here’s a quick background:

Groff resigned from his part-time job at a post office in rural Pennsylvania when it no longer wanted to give him Sundays off. The post office wanted him to deliver Amazon packages on Sundays. Groff sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

That federal law requires employers to accommodate an employee’s religious practice…and this next is the crucial part… unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on the business.

In the 1977 Hardison opinion, the court defined undue hardship as anything more than a de minimis cost to the employer.

Lawyer Streett for the former postal worker argued for a different test: a significant-difficulty -or- expense test. Lower courts already apply that test to other laws with the term “undue hardship.” Like the Americans with Disabilities Act that requires employers to make reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities.

Lawyer Streett explained why the government’s test isn’t consistent:

STREETT: Thus, under the government's test, a diabetic employee could receive snack breaks under the ADA but not prayer breaks under Title VII, for that might cause lost efficiency.

The justices wanted to know how Groff’s preferred test would play out. Justice Amy Coney Barrett could see how it might bring financial hardship. But what about non-monetary burdens?

JUSTICE BARRETT: What if it's just morale? Employees aren't as productive because they're grumbling. They're not willing to kind of go the extra mile, put their best foot forward. Those might be very difficult things to put a dollar amount on, or the dollar amount might be small. But why wouldn't they be things that affected the conduct of the business?

STREETT: We do not advocate for a dollar amount test. It just needs to be concrete evidence that the employer is not able to carry out its operations, and that is something that the employer has the burden to prove.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued on behalf of the United States.

ELIZABETH PRELOGAR: The lower courts correctly found an undue hardship on these facts.

She said Groff’s absences caused problems with the timely delivery of mail.

PRELOGAR: And it actually produced employee retention problems, with one carrier quitting, and another carrier transferring, and another carrier filing a union grievance.

Justice Neil Gorsuch pointed out that both parties agree that Hardison’s de minimis test can’t be taken too literally.

The government doesn’t go so far as to agree with Groff that the test needs to be abandoned. Just clarified.

Still, given the harmony, Gorsuch suggested a simple fix.

JUSTICE GORSUCH: If there is so much common ground here between the parties and really between the parties and Hardison that, you know, some courts have taken this "de minimis" language and run with it and say anything more than a trifling will get the employer out of any concerns here, and that's wrong and we all agree that's wrong, why can't we just say that and be done with it and be silent as to the rest of it?

If I were a justice, I’d clarify the burden the employer must show and remand the case for a jury trial. But if I were a jury member, I’m not sure where I’d fall. I’d want to hear more about how the Sabbath accommodation affected the post office’s financial woes. And whether it was Groff’s request, or the leadership’s handling of it, that played a role in the low morale.

One final case today: tax law. Remo Polselli owed the IRS money. On its paper chase to collect the tax debt, the IRS issued summonses to banks where his wife and his law firms had accounts. The IRS didn’t give notice to his wife or the firms—doing so might have caused them to tip off Polselli so he’d transfer his money to Switzerland or hide it elsewhere. The question in this case centers on whether the law permits the IRS to withhold notice. Here’s Justice Elena Kagan:

JUSTICE KAGAN: And, you know, basically, I read this language just to say, whoever we're collecting from, and it could be this group of people or it could be that group of people, if it's in aid of collecting, then we don't have to issue a notice.

The third parties have good policy arguments. Accessing their records without giving them notice is invasive. But the plain text of the law, while not limitless, gives the government a strong upper hand.

That’s this week’s Legal Docket. I’m Jenny Rough.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: It is time now to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bahnsen, head of the wealth management firm, the Bahnsen Group. David is here now. David, good morning to you.

DAVID BAHNSEN, GUEST: Well, good morning, Nick, good to be with you.

EICHER: Well, David, I have got a full docket here. But just to make sure that we cover all of the news, what do you see as the big story coming out of last week?

BAHNSEN: I don’t think that there was any single economic story that was a standout last week. The earning season is going to really kick in next week and the week thereafter, so the next two weeks are much more substantial in terms of the relevance of earnings results and hearing what’s been going on at these large companies: hiring plans, firing plans, revenue, growth, profitability, margins, the impact of costs. These things are all a big deal.

When we focus so much on federal policy, I think we forget that what happens in the day to day economy—what’s happening within the businesses that we work at and patronize—is much more foundationally important. So earnings season is about to become our big focus.

I don’t think that there was any single economic story that was a standout last week. The earning season is going to really kick in next week and the week thereafter, so the next two weeks are much more substantial in terms of the relevance of earnings results and hearing what’s been going on at these large companies: hiring plans, firing plans, revenue, growth, profitability, margins, the impact of costs. These things are all a big deal.

When we focus so much on federal policy, I think we forget that what happens in the day to day economy—what’s happening within the businesses that we work at and patronize—is much more foundationally important. So earnings season is about to become our big focus.

EICHER: Right, right. So any early indications of how that's going to go?

BAHNSEN: We’ve had one week of results so far, and it was fairly positive. I wouldn’t say it was better than expected or worse than expected on the whole, but it was better than expected for the big banks. Now remember, a lot of the damage from the Silicon Valley Bank closure was contained in the last three weeks of March, and companies are reporting for the whole first quarter. But I think what we saw so far within the banking results was a little better than expected.

I can certainly tell you this: We are not in a recession right now. No question.

EICHER: All right. Well, speaking of banks and the Fed, the Wall Street Journal had a big story over the weekend, saying that the Fed, the Federal Reserve, is considering, as the Journal puts it, "closing a loophole that allows some midsize banks effectively to mask losses on securities they hold, a contributing factor in the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank." The journal goes on to describe an exemption that allows some banks to boost the amount of capital they report for regulatory purposes. It has to do with so called unrealized losses on certain securities the banks hold against deposits. The story says regulators are weighing the change after the sudden collapses last month of SVB and Signature Bank rattled the financial system. If adopted, it would reverse a loosening of rules by the Fed in 2019, and heighten oversight of mid-sized banks by extending restrictions that currently apply only to the largest, most complex firms. David, what do you think about that potential move by the Fed?

BAHNSEN:  Oh, I think it’s ridiculous. And I think it’s totally unhelpful and unnecessary, done for no other purpose than to have people like us say that they did it. It’s purely cosmetic. There is no restriction that allows a bank to pretend that they have a value they don’t have.

Right now, when you have a bond that will mature for $100 in 10 years, if you were to sell it in the market today it will be worth $92. The reason the banks have it marked at $100 is because they’re marked in a hold to maturity in their balance sheet, and it is most certainly worth $100 in hold to maturity. The footnotes and other things that people doing financial analysis are supposed to be looking at indicate that difference in that their liquidity was less, because if they were to sell hold to maturity assets (which, by definition, are not supposed to have to be sold) then yes, they’d be taking less. But that was all known. That was all reported.

The problem was not the knowledge or the reporting. The problem was they ended up having to sell assets you weren’t supposed to have to sell. So the issue the Fed is trying to tackle here is totally cosmetic. It implies to some people that there was something wrong before about the reporting when there was not. What was wrong before was that they did not hedge interest rate risk: That they had a ton of deposits that were hot and that there was a concentration of a certain type of banking customer that led to more volatility in their deposit base. But the fact that they had long dated bonds that were absolutely money good will lead it to cut the other way, because you’re going to end up having bonds that were bought to mature at $100 that will go up in value. Now is that going to help?

Anybody can see that those bonds are worth 108, which for 27 of the last 28 years of my adult life were trading at premiums to par value, not discounts. So for one year, all of a sudden, we’re in a discount to par. And while it’s going to be helpful to see the number up or down above par value, that is not the number they get back in maturity. The whole thing is ridiculous.

EICHER: Well, David, last one, I want to call a special attention to your Dividend Cafe column this past weekend. Very interesting story about the Fed and inflation. It covers a lot of the ground that we've covered over months and years really kind of compresses it in. And there's this moment in the column where you're talking with a friend about how the Fed has been on the exact wrong end of things during COVID, and in the post-COVID environment, in short, that the Fed's monetary policy was too loose in 2020, and '21, and too tight now. So talk about what led you to that insight.

BAHNSEN: Well, I've been making the point here on The World and Everything in It, and in my own writing, and speaking for quite some time, that right now, the inflation data is not accurate to the real-time reality on the street, because nobody in their right mind thinks that rents and house prices are inflating in the present tense 8 or 9%. And yet, for example, the month of March CPI assumes an 8.2% input of annual inflation growth into the cost of rent and housing, when I think it is likely a negative number, -1, -2%, we're happy to pretend it's 0%. And certainly, no matter what soaking wet, it isn't more than +1% or +2%. Yet, because of the way that they measure shelter in inflation data, it has a huge lag effect. They're looking at numbers that can be one or two years old that are feeding into the methodology and all avoid the details and complexity of how they do that for our purposes.

I had dinner with a really close friend of mine by the name of John Mauldin, who's a very well known investment newsletter writer in our industry, and he had asked if I feel so strongly about that, which I do now, what I thought was happening in 2021. In other words, when interest rates are at 0%, when inflation was showing much lower, but we all knew that housing prices were actually skyrocketing higher, was the same lag affected then, hurting, but the other way, and I emphatically said yes, and most certainly was. Now, of course, we have a really hard time talking about inflation in our country, because people seem incapable of doing it, apart from political agendas. Where economically, where I don't have a strong political agenda, I do believe that the goods inflation from when the supply chain was broken, is different than the housing inflation from when the Fed had rates at 0%. And so I prefer nuance and detail and sometimes a more granular analysis, that's gonna be I think, more accurate, but it doesn't make for good sound bites, it's probably not even good on our podcast right now. But that's how I have to do things to be an honest, you know, analyst and economist.

The inflation inputs were underreporting reality two years ago, they're over-reporting it now. And everybody knows it. And so you say, Well, why didn't the Fed respond? Because I don't believe the Fed's real impetus has ever been about the inflation. There's other aspects of trying to control the business cycle. And yet, they have to do so behind their congressionally mandated duty of price stability. So in '21, they could hide behind the low inflation data to justify staying too low, too loose, too easy for too long. And right now they can hide behind inflation data to justify why they continue hiking rates when, clearly, they've already tightened financial conditions and, clearly, we do not have an excess demand problem. Prices have come down substantially and are continuing to come down. And if we weren't over counting shelter prices, we have inflation somewhere between two and 2.8% now, so the fact of the matter is that we just simply have the same problem that cut in two different directions.

EICHER: All right, well, you may have a question for David and if you do, you can send it to feedback@worldandeverything.com. We have come to the end of our time for today. Always comes too quickly. David Bahnsen is founder, managing partner and chief investment officer of the Bahnsen Group. His personal website is bahnsen.com. But I do want to call your specific attention to that Dividend Cafe column that is very much worth a read and you can find that at dividendcafe.com. I'll have a direct link to it in today's program transcript. All right, David, thank you and have a great week.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, April 24th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Ten years ago, a chemical fire in Texas turns deadly. But first, two anniversaries from World War II: one in Europe and the other in Japan. Here’s World Radio executive producer Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: We begin today on April 18th, 1942, just four months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Audio here from a Castle Films newsreel and commentator Basil Ruysdael:

NEWSREEL: Packed on the afterdeck of the Hornet are sixteen B-25 Mitchell bombers. Never before have these huge planes been launched from a carrier.

U.S. forces speed toward Japan—for a surprise counter-attack on Tokyo and surrounding areas. The bomber pilots and crews have trained for months and only now discover why:

NEWSREEL: Not until they are miles at sea do these men know definitely the mission for which they have volunteered.

Due to discovery by a Japanese patrol vessel, the pilots and their crews decide to launch sooner than originally planned. But Colonel Doolittle and his bombers all make it to their Japanese targets without harassment. The squadron drops nearly 14 tons of bombs.

Seven of the 80 crew members die in the raid, or soon after. But the successful attack boosts Allied morale. The raid prompts Japan to keep four fighter groups close to home for defense during 1942 and 1943 instead of sending them to the South Pacific.

Doolittle’s raid becomes an effective recruiting tool. Capt. Ted Lawson’s book on the mission is later adapted into a successful feature film starring Spencer Tracy and Van Johnson.

MUSIC: [FROM FILM]

Meanwhile, in Europe, about 400,000 Jews live together in a Warsaw, Poland ghetto. Not long after the Doolittle Raids, German SS units begin mass Jewish deportations.

From July 22nd until September 12th, 1942, German forces and police units conduct the “Great Action”—killing as many as 35,000 Jews in their homes while “relocating” about 265,000 Jews to so-called “work camps,” most of whom later die. Over the next few months, those left behind in the ghetto begin constructing bunkers and underground shelters to hide from German authorities.

On April 19th, 1943—the eve of Passover—German forces arrive to begin the next phase of the Jewish purge. They discover stiff resistance. Nearly 700 Jewish fighters begin a coordinated attack—armed mainly with pistols, a few automatic weapons, and Molotov cocktails. The Warsaw ghetto uprising lasts twenty-seven days, sometimes devolving to hand-to-hand fighting.

In the end, the occupying German forces set fire to the ghetto. 7,000 Jewish residents are killed in the conflict. Another 7,000 are rounded up and executed. 42,000 survivors are captured and deported.

SOUND: [FROM MEMORIAL]

Last week, the presidents of Poland, Israel, and Germany gathered in Warsaw to mark the 80th anniversary of the uprising.

German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier became his country’s first head of state to speak at a Warsaw ghetto uprising commemoration:

FRANK-WALTER STEINMEIER: [SPEAKING IN GERMAN]

President Steinmeier told attendees: “I stand before you today and ask for your forgiveness for the crimes committed by Germans here, I bow to the dead in deep sorrow.” Then speaking to the presidents of Poland and Israel he added: “many people in your two countries have granted us Germans reconciliation despite these crimes.” Steinmeier called that a “miracle of reconciliation to be preserved into the future.”

SOUND: [FROM MEMORIAL]

And finally this morning—we mark the 10th anniversary of a fatal chemical fire in the city of West, Texas. On April 17th, 2013, many residents of the small Texas town are trying to get a good look at a large fire at a fertilizer plant on the edge of town. The facility is a stone throw away from the school and neighboring nursing home.

SOUND: [FATHER AND DAUGHTER SITTING IN TRUCK WATCHING FIRE]

Derrick Hurtt and his daughter Khloey want to snap a few photos so they pull into the local highschool parking lot. They are casually chatting in their pickup truck 300 yards from the fire. Hurtt is holding his cellphone outside the driver's side window videoing the blaze. When all of a sudden, the fertilizer explodes.

SOUND: [FATHER AND DAUGHTER SITTING IN TRUCK WATCHING FIRE]

The shockwave and debris shatter the windshield, throwing Derrick against his daughter.

The two are unharmed, but the explosion destroys a hundred homes and surrounding buildings leaving a 93-foot-wide crater. 15 people die in the blast—most of them fire-fighters. 160 other people are injured by flying metal and glass or collapsing homes.

The facility had previously been cited and fined for improper storage of ammonium nitrate and inadequate safety protocols.

In 2015, the Texas Legislature passed a bill that regulates storage and inspection of ammonium nitrate. It also gives greater authority to local officials to enforce regulation.

SOUND: [FROM MEMORIAL EVENT]

Last weekend hundreds turned out for a public ceremony at the city park memorial…featuring speeches, musical performances, and the screening of a new documentary.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: the abortion drug mifepristone remains available for now per the Supreme Court. What’s the practical effect of that Friday decision??

And, some cities are starting to legalize polyamory. We’ll talk about how households with a tangle of ambiguous relationships negatively affect kids who live there.

That and more tomorrow. I’m Nick Eicher.

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 records Joshua telling the leaders of Israel: “…if you transgress the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them. Then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and you shall perish quickly from off the good land that he has given to you.” Joshua 23, verse 16.

Go now in grace and peace.

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