The World and Everything in It - April 28, 2022

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Supply chain shortages of microchips have an upside: a push to ramp up production of them in the United States.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Also a legal challenge to the Marine Corps dress code.

Plus a visit to an Australian processing plant—where dirty, greasy wool is made pure and clean.

And commentator Cal Thomas on Mickey Mouse and politics.

BROWN: It’s Thursday, April 28th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. Good morning!

BROWN: Up next, Kristen Flavin has today’s news.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, NEWS ANCHOR: Evacuation efforts, gas supplies, and nuclear fears in Ukraine » Russia has agreed in principle to allow a UN team to evacuate civilians from a besieged steel mill in Mariupol. But negotiators are still working out the logistical details.

A UN spokesman told reporters on Wednesday the plan depends on cooperation from Moscow and Kyiv to guarantee the mission’s safety. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met with Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today.

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking Ukrainian]

During his daily message to the nation, Zelenskyy thanked the European Commission for removing all duties and quotas on Ukrainian exports for the next year. He said that will help stave off a looming economic crisis in the country.

Europe continues to show strong support for Ukraine, even in the face of Russian retaliation. Countries are rallying to share energy resources amid Russian threats to cut off all supplies. Ursula von der Leyen is the European Commission president.

VON DER LEYEN: We have, as you know, also reached an agreement with the United States to provide additional LNG imports this year and the following ones. And we are working hand-in-hand with our member states to secure alternative gas supplies from other partners, too.

Russia stopped delivering natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria on Tuesday and threatened to cut off other nations that continue to give Ukraine military aid.

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency is worried about the safety of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. Russia currently controls the facility.

Rafael Mariano Grossi is the IAEA director-general. He says UN regulators are seeking immediate access to assess damage and make repairs.

GROSSI: And all of this is not happening. So the situation, I have described it and I would repeat it today, is not sustainable as it is. So, this is a pending issue, this is a red light blinking.

Russian missiles have already come dangerously close to several nuclear facilities, a dangerous situation Grossi said could not continue.

Former Marine freed in prisoner swap with Russia » A former U.S. Marine jailed for three years in Russia is back home. WORLD’s Leigh Jones has that story.

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: Trevor Reed gained his freedom Wednesday after U.S. officials announced an unexpected prisoner swap with the Kremlin.

In exchange for Reed, Washington released Russian drug trafficker Konstantin Yaroshenko. He was serving a 20-year federal prison sentence in Connecticut for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the United States.

Reed’s family said the swap happened at an airport in Turkey with both prisoners walking across the tarmac at the same time, just like in the movies.

The Biden administration said it based the swap on a specific set of circumstances that did not affect Washington’s approach to the, quote “appalling violence in Ukraine.”

Russian police arrested the 30-year-old American in 2019 after he allegedly assaulted a police officer following a night of heavy drinking. The U.S. government called his detention unjust. He was later sentenced to nine years in prison.

Two other Americans remain behind bars in Russia. WNBA star Brittney Griner and Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones.

Mayorkas defends immigration policies at House hearing » House lawmakers grilled Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday. Both Republicans and Democrats voiced concern about next month’s proposed end to the Title 42 immigration rule. The pandemic-era policy allows border officials to turn migrants away due to a public health emergency.

Mayorkas admitted more people will seek entry at the southern border.

MAYORKAS: With the Title 42 public health order set to be lifted, we expect migration levels to increase as smugglers seek to take advantage of and profit from vulnerable migrants. We will continue to enforce our immigration laws.

The Biden administration has requested funding to hire 300 more border patrol agents. But Mayorkas said a significant increase in migrants would further strain a system already stretched to the breaking point.

While lawmakers looked to the Biden administration for answers, Mayorkas said lawmakers are responsible for finding a solution.

MAYORKAS: We inherited a broken and dismantled system that is already under strain. It is not built to manage the current levels and types of migratory flows. Only Congress can fix this.

The Biden administration wants to end Title 42 on May 23rd. But a federal judge put that timeline in doubt after he issued a temporary stay on Tuesday.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans will insist on voting to keep Title 42 in place.

Fauci says U.S. out of pandemic phase » The COVID-19 pandemic is officially over, at least in the United States. That’s the assessment of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Fauci gave his diagnosis during an interview on PBS NewsHour.

FAUCI: We are certainly, right now, in this country out of the pandemic phase. Namely, we don’t have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now.

But Fauci was quick to add that our battle with COVID-19 is not over because the virus will never be eradicated. He predicted Americans will need periodic, regular vaccines to help keep serious disease at bay.

Although case counts remain low, Fauci said the official numbers likely undercount the actual amount of infections. But he called that a good sign because people who are infected aren’t sick enough to seek testing or treatment.

New York court rejects Dem’s congressional maps » New York’s highest court has rejected new congressional maps widely considered to favor Democrats. The decision is a major blow to their bid to keep Republicans from retaking the U.S. House in November. WORLD’s Paul Butler has more.

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: The New York Court of Appeals ruled the Democratic-led legislature lacked the authority to redraw congressional and state Senate maps. Lawmakers took over the redistricting effort after an independent commission failed to reach a consensus on new maps.

But, the judges said lawmakers gerrymandered the maps to favor Democrats. And they ruled that violated a 2014 state constitutional amendment designed to remove politics from the process.

A lower court will now start the process over. And that’s likely to force the state to postpone primary elections from June to August.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

And I’m Kristen Flavin. Straight ahead: protecting the U.S. technology supply chain.

Plus, Walt Disney’s apolitical vision.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday, the 28th of April, 2022.

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

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. First up: making computer chips.

Semiconductors, or semiconductor chips, are essential components of nearly all electronics—from cars to iPhones. Without them, these devices we rely on won’t work.

REICHARD: In recent years, most of the semiconductor chips used in the United States have come from Taiwan. But economic and security concerns are driving a push to bring semiconductor production in-house, so to speak. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher reports.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company recently broke ground on a new facility in Phoenix, Arizona. The $12 billion plant is intended to produce 5nm chips—the sort often used in iPhones.

And the company, commonly referred to by its acronym, TSMC, isn’t the only chip manufacturer building a new plant in America. Intel and Samsung have also launched plans for semiconductor manufacturing facilities in Phoenix and Austin, Texas.

Mark Montgomery is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He says the U.S. government is concerned about shoring up vulnerabilities in the supply chain.

MONTGOMERY: TSMC is trying to be a good partner, they recognize that the U.S. is expressing some concerns over our, the lack of foundries fabrication facilities in the United States.

To help alleviate that concern, TSMC and other semiconductor companies have been trying to move their operations into the United States.

MONTGOMERY: All the reasons aren't the same for the companies. But part of it is a desire to demonstrate a commitment to onshoring a bit of what we consider a very critical technology back into the United States.

Because semiconductors are so vital to our daily lives, a shortage could have a drastic effect on the economy.

Claude Barfield is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

BARFIELD: Having a supply of sort of a multifaceted supply of chips, that's kind of up and down the advancement scale is vital to not just the US economy, but but all modern economies, I think. And so securing that having the Fed having a number of firms here is much more a, I would argue, a geostrategic issue that is an economic issue.

But sourcing the chips also factors into national security considerations.

Barfield says the factories that currently produce most of the semiconductor chips are too close to China for comfort.

BARFIELD: It makes sense, really, from a security point of view for the United States to have some plants here. There is a solid security reason for having some fabs here in the United States.

Josh Hastey teaches about national security at Regent University. He says these new factories shed light on the current state of U.S.-China relations.

HASTEY: Political scientists have been pretty careful to avoid using the term Cold War to apply to the US and China's adversarial relationship. I'm not sure, I think the veneer of not using that term is getting pretty thin. These days…

Hastey draws an analogy to the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The United States carefully subsidized wheat production at home so it didn’t have to depend on wheat grown in Eastern Europe, right next door to the Soviet Union.

He says that’s basically the same thing that’s happening here, only with semiconductors.

HASTEY: All of that is to say that we're seeing this as part of a much broader expansion of quiet competition, quiet adversarial conflict between between the U.S. and China, where it really starts to make sense only if we think of a multidomain conflict, that that's ongoing.

And Hastey says these new factories prove the United States doesn’t have to be dependent on China.

HASTEY: American production coupling with China is not forever static. We can continue and should continue to trade with China as long as it's advantageous to us and as long as we can do so in a mutually productive, mutually beneficial way.

Mark Montgomery says the new factories also signal strong U.S. support for Taiwan’s national security.

MONTGOMERY: This TSMC investment is is a great outward sign of the developing, you know, of the strong partnership between the United States and Taiwan. It's based on more than just U.S. security guarantees. It's actually about economic partnership. It's about, it's between two countries that have a very strong shared sense of values. And this kind of investment, you know, is a great way to show that they're investing in us the same way we invest significantly in them.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: religious liberty in the military.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Earlier this month, four men of the Sikh faith filed suit against the Marine Corps over its dress code requirements. It’s a case religious liberty advocates say could have big implications for Christians, too.

Joining us now to talk about it is Steve West. He is an attorney who writes on religious liberty issues for WORLD Digital.

BROWN: Good morning, Steve!

STEVE WEST, REPORTER: Good morning, Myrna.

BROWN: Let’s start with the details of this case. Who are the plaintiffs and what are their claims?

WEST: Beards and turbans are not generally an article of faith for Christians, and yet for the Sikh believer these things are an outward sign of what they believe–beliefs which center around truthful living, service to others, and devotion to God. The Sikh challengers here include a Marine Corp captain who is currently serving as well as three prospective recruits. All say they want to serve their country.

BROWN: What is the Marine Corps dress code?

WEST: The Marine Corp tells new recruits, who go through a rigorous boot camp, that they have to shave their beards and cut their hair before basic training. They say a prohibition on beards and turbans promotes uniformity in the Marine Corps, which aims to diminish individuality and build team spirit at its 13-week boot camp. Beyond boot camp, it says soldiers can apply for religious accommodation, and yet they cite safety concerns that beards or turbans could prevent soldiers from wearing gas masks in combat zones.

BROWN: Are those requirements applied equally to all members?

WEST: That’s part of the problem, say challengers. They claim the military has been inconsistent in enforcing its rules, citing its allowing full-body tattoos (hands, face, and neck only excepted) for non-religious reasons but not other personal expression that is religious in nature. And they say it has allowed beards for medical but not religious reasons–even in combat zones.

BROWN: And yet there's a bigger problem, right?

WEST: That’s right. A 1993 federal law, Religious Freedom Restoration Act only allows the military to restrict individual exercise of religion when a “compelling government interest” is at stake, and requires it to use the “least restrictive means” possible. No one would deny that the military has significant safety, security, and discipline concerns. Nor would anyone deny that sometimes it has no alternative but to burden the exercise of religion because of these compelling interests. Yet the case raises questions about whether the Marine Corp has been as accommodating as it could be and has applied its dress code fairly to nonreligious and religious expression.

BROWN: How do other branches of the military handle these types of issues?

WEST: They are more accommodating, though not before a lawsuit was filed. In 2016, a federal court sided with a Sikh soldier requesting a religious exemption for his beard and headwear under U.S. Army regulations. Army officials relaxed dress standards, and the Air Force and Navy followed suit, accommodating Sikhs as well as Muslim and Jewish soldiers with similar requests. But the Marine Corps held out.

BROWN: This case won’t directly affect a large number of people. But the lawyers for the Sikh plaintiffs say it could have implications for many faith groups, including Christians. How so?

WEST: It may be about beards and turbans today, but a ruling here may guide how the government approaches other burdens on religious liberty, both military and nonmilitary. A favorable ruling could require the government to treat religious accommodations the same as secular accommodations as well as be more careful, more nuanced, in trying to accommodate religious expression wherever it can while keeping the military ready.

BROWN: Steve, can you provide an example of how this could impact Christians?

WEST: This case immediately brought to mind the way the military has handled the relatively small number of soldiers who have requested accommodation because they object to COVID vaccines on religious grounds–many, but not all, of whom are Christians who are concerned that fetal cell lines were used in the development of the vaccines. They’ve not been accommodating of these concerns at all, and courts continue to tell them so. They’ve also been inconsistent, often accommodating those with medical but not religious objections.

Military officials just need to ask themselves the same question any government authority should ask when burdening religion: “Are there other ways we can do what we need to do without suppressing faith and that eventually protects people of all faiths?” Often, the answer is Yes.

BROWN: Steve West is an attorney and writer for WORLD Digital. To sign up for his weekly newsletter called Liberties, visit WNG.org/newsletters. Thanks so much, Steve!

WEST: Always a pleasure, Myrna.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Top researchers in the field of fluid dynamics set out to unlock one of the great mysteries of mankind. Can you unscrew an Oreo in such a way as to achieve a perfect distribution of creme filling?

Call it Oreology. Crystal Owens is a PhD student at MIT.

OWENS: I really wanted to perfect the taste which means that you have a little bit of cream and you never get a bite that’s just wafer…

Yeah, nobody wants that, but that’s what everybody gets.

So Owens and her team created the “Oreometer,” a device that scientifically twists apart the cookies.

She and her custom device went through about 20 packages before she determined it cannot be done.

We can put a man on the moon, but even with an Oreometer and an MIT student we have not achieved the perfect 50-50 split of cookie and creme.

But you can continue the research: Ms. Owens published instructions online for creating your own Oreometer at home.

Of course, you’ll need a 3-D printer, lots of Oreos, and, you know the story: If you give a researcher a cookie...

BROWN: She’ll probably ask for a glass of milk.

REICHARD: It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, April 28th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

A few weeks ago, WORLD Correspondent Amy Lewis introduced us to a retired sheep farmer by the name of Dennis Richmond. He reflected on raising sheep for the past 50 years.

DENNIS: Sheep are sort of known for being a bit cantankerous. It’s almost as if they’ve got their will and they don’t want their will broken as well…

BROWN: But Richmond’s farm is only the first step in the process—getting the wool to grow. But in order to get the wool from the backs of sheep to your back in the form of a sweater—it has to be cleaned.

REICHARD: Today, Amy explains how they do that, as she brings us along to one of the last wool scouring and carbonizing mills in Australia.

AMY LEWIS, REPORTER: A red brick building with a sawtooth roofline sprawls not far from the Barwon River in Geelong. This is the Riversdale Scouring and Carbonising Mill, built in the 1920s. For a hundred years the wool from millions of sheep has moved through this plant. It comes in greasy and heavy. It leaves soft and billowy white.

Jim Robinson’s family bought the business in the 1980s. It’s one of only three wool scouring mills left in the entire country.

ROBINSON: Oh, look, it's, we would have just survived just by being an independent, small operator. It's a family business. All the corporates have sort of pulled out of this.

The process of cleaning wool hasn’t changed much over the last hundred years. But what workers used to do by hand is now done by large machines.

AUDIO: [Machines]

The other two mills in Australia own all the wool they process. Robinson’s mill is unique: Individual clients bring him their raw wool–whether it’s two bales or 200. Employees empty the wool from canvas bags into the vast mouth of the machine where it’s scoured by swishing through baths of hot water and detergent.

AUDIO: [Squeaking, “scour bowl”]

The keratin fibers known as wool are now free of grease. Next, they go through a diluted acid bath that turns all the plant matter—like grass and burrs—to black carbon.

ROBINSON: Yeah, so all this vegetable matter that might have been a light brown or it's a seed or, you know, a tree burr will turn black, which you can basically just crush out, crush in your fingers, but we put it through these fluted rollers, and then de-dust it and then we end up with, with wool which is now free of grease and dirt and now free of vegetable matter…

What might take a crafter weeks to accomplish by hand takes a little over an hour at Riversdale. With the wool clean and free of debris, it’s time for a little pH balancing and some light bleaching. Then, the wool is ready to spin into yarn.

It might be made into Pendelton blankets. It might become an expensive Italian suit or spun into skeins of yarn and sold at a local farmstand. It might even travel to England. 

ROBINSON: The cloth that goes into the uniforms for the Queen's guard. So all you see in London all their red, the beautiful red cloth. That's, that was wool that comes from our plant.

Almost half the weight of each incoming wool bale comes from dirt and grease. All that waste has to go somewhere. In the old days, workers just dumped it into the river. One of the largest expenses of cleaning wool today is getting rid of the debris and dirty water responsibly.

AUDIO: [Grease machines]

ROBINSON: But that, that's probably one of the reasons why this…this operation did close in 1927, they cited the high cost of the Geelong and district waterboard trade waste charges…

AUDIO: [Treatment Plant]

Ten years ago, Robinson installed a costly treatment plant. It bubbles all the dirt and debris to the surface of a large tank. The muck gets skimmed off and sent to a nearby farmer. He composts it and grows millet in the soil gathered from the backs of sheep from all over Australia. The captured grease gets converted to vitamin D3 supplements and lanolin for cosmetics.

Robinson is conscious of the impact his business has on the environment. But he’s also concerned for the animals whose wool he processes. Merino sheep grow fine and soft wool. But their bodies have many folds of skin. And in all the wrong places. Like near their tail, which is removed to keep the area clean.

Here’s Dennis Richmond, the retired sheep farmer.

RICHMOND: It’s called mulesing. It’s when you’re taking the tail off and earmarking the lamb, a little bit of skin is also taken off around the tail to keep the skin nice and tight, so it doesn’t get stained or dirty to attract the flies, which then lay their eggs, which cause the flystrike, which kills them!

To mules or not to mules. It’s a bloody and painful process for the sheep. Ethical treatment of a Merino sheep is complicated. The farmer inflicts pain on a lamb to prevent its death by flystrike. If he doesn’t, he could be subjecting the sheep to a miserable death. The middle road these days is to use dry ice to numb the bum or to use medicinal pain relief. But the long-term goal of many farmers is to actually breed out the crinkly skin. Here’s Richmond’s son Mark.

RICHMOND: It just takes such a long time to change the genetic makeup of the animals. That, yeah, you just gotta keep on hammering and hammering.

And that brings gets us back to Robinson. Being a boutique business means doing things differently, and hopefully better. Robinson’s clients comply with higher standards for their sheep and farms. Robinson also meets Responsible Wool Standards or RWS. That means an annual audit.

ROBINSON: We've just got to be sort of, you know, just at the forefront of these things, yeah.

Thanks to processors and farmers like Robinson and Richmond, the industry is moving toward more wise stewardship. And Robinson believes that cleaning his clients’ wool to the highest standards sets up his business for success. Maybe for another hundred years. 

ROBINSON: I think it's an industry here that's been now 100, 200 years old. And they're still going to be sheep being grown and bred here for their meat and wool. So there's always going to be wool in Australia that needs to be scoured.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Amy Lewis in Geelong, Australia.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, April 28th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Here’s commentator Cal Thomas on politics and Mickey Mouse.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the state’s Republican-majority legislature have revoked a special tax exemption and other privileges for Walt Disney World in Orlando. That after the company's current leaders and some of its employees protested another bill signed by the governor. It prohibits the teaching of gender issues to the state’s youngest students—kindergarten through third grade. Activists and the media have mislabeled it the “Don't Say Gay” bill, even though the word “gay” appears nowhere in the legislation.

Florida gave Walt Disney World tax breaks and extended other privileges nearly 50 years ago because lawmakers then believed it would create jobs, attract tourists, and produce sales tax revenue. And it has, with roaring success. The “most magical place on earth” brings the state $5 billion annually.

Until recently, the Disney organization stayed out of the culture wars and politics, preferring to maintain the vision founder Walt Disney had for what came to be known as “family entertainment.”

What would Walt Disney, who died in 1966, think of his company today?

In Neal Gabler's biography Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, we learn that while Walt was sometimes opinionated, especially when it came to his anti-communism beliefs, he wanted to keep Disneyland, Disney World, and his animated characters free of politics and focused on fantasy and storytelling.

Gabler writes: "...Walt hadn't really been a conservative or a Republican or much of anything else for the better part of his adult life. ... He had voted for Roosevelt in 1936 ... and though he had supported Republican Wendell Willkie in 1940 ... he declined a request from the Willkie campaign for an endorsement, writing, '(A) long time ago I found out that I knew nothing whatsoever about the game of politics and since then I've preferred to keep silent about the entire matter rather than see my name attached to any statement that was not my own.'"

While researching the book, Gabler found a letter from someone lobbying Walt to make a film reel of flags with patriotic music. Walt responded, “I don't go in for billboard patriotism.” Joe Grant, who Gabler says accompanied Walt on several wartime visits to Washington, said of him, “He was very apolitical, believe me.”

But that wasn't entirely true. According to Gabler, Walt joined several conservatives, including Ginger Rogers, George Murphy (who later became a Republican senator from California) and Robert Montgomery “in forming a Hollywood Republican Committee to counteract the more liberal Progressive Citizens of America.”

Despite these instances, Walt Disney deliberately kept politics out of his films and theme parks. As Gabler writes, “In effect, despite his Republicanism, Walt Disney belonged to everyone.”

It’s too bad the current Disney leaders don’t follow that pattern. If they did, the company would not be suffering these entirely predictable consequences. If they don't reverse course, it could irreparably tarnish the Disney brand and what has long been considered a “magic kingdom.”

I’m Cal Thomas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet answers one of your questions on Culture Friday.

And, a new Marvel super hero. We’ll review the streaming series, Moon Knight.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

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: Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7-8 ESV)

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.