The World and Everything in It: April 30, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. My name is Amy Boyd. My family and I live in Sussex, New Jersey. We love to listen to The World and Everything in It anytime we're in the car all together. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Congress gives TikTok nine months to divest or depart. But what’s the real issue here for lawmakers?

MONTGOMERY: I think they were more worried about the data privacy issue than the national security issue.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also, today, oral arguments at the Supreme Court. The question is whether federal medical-emergency rules override state law protecting the unborn.

And later, caring for the world’s coral reefs.

PASCAL KIK: It's important to have the right salinity, the right temperature. And we try to keep it as stable as possible.

And how surrogacy laws fail to protect children.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, April 30th. 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 for news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Blinken in Middle East / cease-fire » The White House is hopeful that Hamas will accept the latest cease-fire proposal to halt the fighting in Gaza. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre:

PIERRE:  There has been new progress in talks, and currently the onus is indeed on Hamas. There is a deal on the table, and they need to take it. 

Secretary of State Tony Blinken met on Monday Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia who have been pressing Hamas to accept the latest — and possibly, the last — offer from Israel. He described the proposal as ....

BLINKEN: Extraordinarily, extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel. And in this moment, the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas.

Under the agreement, Israel would halt its Gaza offensive for 40 days. Hamas would be required to release a total of 33 Israeli hostages over that time. That’s down from Israel’s prior demand that the terror group release at least 40 captives.

Israel also agrees to allow the unrestricted movement of Palestinians to northern Gaza … and may agree to withdrawal of Israeli troops from certain areas.

Blinken on blaming only Israel » Blinken also said on Monday that it’s worth remembering how this war started with a horrific Hamas massacre and terrorist attack on Israeli soil.

BLINKEN: It's almost as if it's been erased from the story. 

He said he profoundly understands the deep emotion that people are expressing over this conflict and over the suffering in Gaza. He said Washington continues to press Israel to do more to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. And the White House still opposes Israel’s planned offensive in Rafah, should the cease-fire effort fail.

But he added that this war could have ended before it began …

BLINKEN: If Hamas had stopped hiding behind civilians, put down its weapons, given back the hostages, and surrendered, none of the suffering that we've seen since would have happened. So, where is the demand on Hamas?

SOUND: [Protests]

Columbia University/blaming Israel alone » Blinken’s remarks come as protests continue on college campuses across the country with many of those demonstrators accusing Israel of genocide.

AUDIO: No more money for Israel’s crimes! No more money for Israel’s crimes!

Protesters on the campus of New York’s Columbia University on Monday … defied a deadline to disband …

PROTESTER: We will not be moved by these intimidation tactics.

The Ivy League school had issued an ultimatum for students to leave the encampment by 2 p.m. Monday or face suspension. Many refused, and the school is now reportedly doling out those suspensions.

And police arrested more demonstrators at Columbia University and at the University of Texas.

Ukraine latest/Stoltenberg » NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says the war in Ukraine is still winnable, but the West has to speed up its supply of weapons to Ukrainian forces.

At a news conference in Kyiv, he said recent delays by NATO allies in delivering help have led to serious consequences on the battlefield.

STOLTENBERG: The lack of ammunition has enabled the Russians to push forward along the front line. Lack of air defense has made it possible for more Russian missiles to hit their targets.

Ukrainian leaders say Western supplies have started to trickle in… including U.S. weapons funded in the foreign aid package just approved by Congress.

States challenge federal trans rule » Republican attorneys general from at least a dozen states are challenging a new federal education rule.

The Biden administration is pushing to ban blanket school policies that keep boys out of girls’ restrooms and locker rooms, and vice versa.

The states are also concerned the rule could force school officials and classmates to use students’ preferred pronouns.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill says the struggles of students with gender dysphoria should be taken seriously, but…

MURRILL: I don’t think that means we have to deny what the effect of this ruling is on biological women. I mean, it’s just apples and oranges.

Louisiana is leading one of several multi-state suits. It’s asking a federal court to delay the effective date of the new rule, which is slated for August 1st.

Kenya Dam Collapsing » In Kenya, massive floods and a landslide near Nairobi have swept away homes and cars and killed dozens of people. WORLD’s Mark Mellinger has more.

MARK MELLINGER: At least 45 people are confirmed dead with about 50 still missing.

Authorities initially said that a dam collapsed, triggering a flood. But they later changed that report saying the flood waters came rushing out of a clogged railway tunnel.

Kenya and other East African countries have been pounded by heavy rain the past month and a half resulting in floods that have killed hundreds, closed schools, and left tens of thousands homeless.

For WORLD, I’m Mark Mellinger.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Congress gives TikTok an ultimatum. Plus, abortion back at the Supreme Court.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 30th of April, 2024. You’re listening to WORLD Radio and we’re glad you are! Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

For years, U.S. officials have been trying to separate TikTok from China. So far, nothing has made it past the courts.

Last month, the U.S. House passed a bill with overwhelming bipartisan support to force the sale of TikTok. That bill stalled in the Senate. So lawmakers tied a new version to a foreign-aid bill. President Joe Biden signed it into law last week.

REICHARD: Under the law, TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance has nine months to divest, or be banned in the U.S. WORLD Radio’s Mary Muncy has the story.

MARY MUNCY: Briana Dariy owns an online boutique and advertises clothing and accessories on TikTok.

BRIANA DARIY: You can access a very niche group of people because TikTok will put your videos on people's pages who are interested in the same things as you.

And since TikTok added an online store in September, Dariy has seen a big jump in revenue.

She also uses TikTok to keep up with the news. If something big happens, she’ll usually see it on her “For You Page,” where the app uses an algorithm to suggest videos tailored to a user’s interests.

DARIY: Most of my algorithm is like things that I enjoy, like, you know, baking or recipes, or Star Wars, or Harry Potter.  But then, you know, it filters in like the news stuff pretty frequently.

Dariy says news stories don’t pop up on Facebook and Instagram, and her friends who don’t have TikTok often don’t know about current events except through word of mouth.

DARIY: I think the government doesn't like that we have access to so much information and access for people to share their opinions so openly without really any limits.

So why are legislators so concerned about the social media app?

After a closed-door briefing on the first bill, Wisconsin Representative Mike Gallagher told reporters that there’s broad consensus on this issue: every major national security official from both the Biden and Trump administrations says there are too many risks to national security from the Chinese-owned app.

MIKE GALLEGHER: What we’ve tried to do here is be very thoughtful and deliberate on balancing the need to force a divestiture from TikTok without granting any authority to the executive branch to regulate content or go after any American company. This is about foreign adversary control of American social media and by extension the dominant news platform for young Americans.

While the bill garnered overwhelming bipartisan support from politicians, there were some dissenters.

Congressman Maxwell Frost of Florida attended the same briefing, but he says the supposed national security risks are not great enough to justify hurting the economy by taking away advertising for small businesses on TikTok.

ROBERT GARCIA: I believe that it is an infringement on our First Amendment rights and that it violates the Constitution. I hear from students all the time that get their information—the truth about what has happened in this country—from content creators on TikTok and on different social media platforms.

Frost, a Democrat, voted against the bill in the House.

The recent bills come after the government tried and failed to shut down TikTok in 2020.

DONALD TRUMP: It’ll close down on September 15 unless Microsoft or somebody else is able to buy it.

Then-President Donald Trump issued an executive order to force ByteDance to divest TikTok.

The action came at the recommendation of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. It said the divestiture was necessary to “protect U.S. users from exploitation of their personal data.”

But the courts blocked the order, saying Trump overstepped his bounds and failed to consider other, more reasonable alternatives.

MARK MONTGOMERY: I think they were more worried about the data privacy issue than the national security issue.

Mark Montgomery runs the cyber center at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

He says foreign entities like TikTok shouldn’t be allowed in the country when they are controlled by nations like China that seek to undermine U.S. national security.

MONTGOMERY: The First Amendment wasn't created for that purpose, it was created for that for you to have freedom of expression, as a citizen, not as a corporate entity working at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party.

So what about the First Amendment rights of citizens who use TikTok? For now, it’s unclear where the law courts will fall on the question of free speech, but in the court of public opinion, perspectives are mixed.

REAGAN PARKER: I think TikTok could be used to influence like the younger audience, I think I think it probably has, but I mean, I don't know if this should be banned.

Reagan Parker started taking TikTok seriously in 2020 and worked full-time posting videos on the app for about a year. He isn’t full-time anymore but he still uses it for supplemental income and pays attention to what goes viral.

PARKER: If there was something that would normally wouldn't go viral that they wanted to go viral like they could 100 percent do that. Which if they wanted to use that sort of thing to influence people then they definitely could.

But, Parker says that’s the same as any other social media app. It just comes down to who’s controlling it.

ByteDance says there are no national security concerns, it will not sell TikTok, and that it will sue based on First Amendment issues.

If the courts don’t agree with ByteDance, and it doesn’t sell the app, TikTok will be unavailable in the U.S. early next year.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: the abortion debate is back at the Supreme Court.

The justices heard arguments last week in a legal battle between the Biden administration and the state of Idaho. At issue is the state’s strong protections for the unborn.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Idaho law permits abortions when the mother faces risk of death, but not when the pregnancy threatens her bodily health. And Idaho defines abortion to include inducing labor when a baby is not yet viable.

The Biden administration says Idaho’s lack of a health exception puts it into conflict with a federal law known as EMTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.

REICHARD: EMTALA requires government-funded emergency departments to provide stabilizing treatment.

The Biden administration says when a woman shows up with pregnancy conditions that could lead to organ damage, hospitals must ignore state law and perform an abortion.

EICHER: Idaho argues the federal government cannot require hospitals to violate state laws. The legal question here was pre-emption: does federal law preempt state law in this situation?

REICHARD: But much of the argument focused on who decides when a mother’s physical health is more important than the life of her unborn child.

WORLD’s Leah Savas reports.

LEAH SAVAS: The court’s female justices cut to the chase on Wednesday. Just minutes into argument by Idaho Deputy Solicitor General Joshua Turner, they began grilling him about the scope of Idaho’s abortion exception. Here, Justice Sonia Sotomayor lists examples of pregnant women who faced risks to their bodily health.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR : Counsel, answer yes or no. He doesn't have -- he doesn't – cannot say that there's likely death. He can say there is likely to be a very serious medical condition --

TURNER: Yeah. Based on --

SOTOMAYOR: -- like a hysterectomy.

TURNER: Based on the --

SOTOMAYOR: Let me go to another one.

The question kept coming. Under what medical conditions could a doctor perform an abortion without violating Idaho’s law? Even conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett pressed Idaho’s lawyer for clarity on when doctors would be covered by the abortion ban.

JUSTICE BARRETT: Does Idaho put out any kind of guidance? You know, HHS puts out guidance about what’s covered by the law and what’s not. Does Idaho?

TURNER: There are regulations. But I think the guiding star here is the Planned Parenthood v. Wasden case, which is a lengthy, detailed treatment by the Idaho Supreme Court of this law. And it made clear, the court made clear that there is no medical certainty requirement. You do not have to wait for the mother to be facing death.

But U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued for the government that EMTALA exists to protect women in these instances from laws like Idaho’s.

PRELOGAR: In cases like these, where there is no other way to stabilize the woman's medical condition and prevent her from deteriorating, EMTALA's plain text requires that she be offered pregnancy termination as the necessary treatment.

Some state laws that protect unborn babies starting at conception include exceptions to preserve a major bodily function of the mother. Idaho is one of several pro-life states that doesn’t have this. And that’s a point of contention even among Idaho’s pro-life groups.

STEPHEN SCHMID: There’s not enough guidance with the law and I think that the doctors in the media who are complaining and saying that are right.

That’s Dr. Stephen Schmid. He’s a retired pro-life surgeon in Idaho. Last year, he brought together pro-life leaders to talk about adding health exception language to the law to prevent further backlash and even more permissive abortion legislation.

SCHMID: What it came down to in our final meeting in January, was that they were unwilling to proceed with any bill to change the language. Their reason or excuse was that we were waiting on this Supreme Court case, to see the outcome of the Supreme Court case.

Schmid says it’s hard to come up with conditions that threaten a bodily function or organ without putting the woman’s life at risk. He can only think of one: uterine infections that could prevent mothers from having future children.

In oral arguments, Turner for Idaho said Idaho law would not allow for an abortion in a case that threatens a woman’s bodily health but not her life.

TURNER: And Idaho, like 22 other states, and even Congress in EMTALA recognizes that there are two patients to consider in those circumstances. And the two-patient scenario is -- is tough when you have these competing interests.

As Turner noted, even EMTALA requires hospitals to care for the health of unborn children. Justice Samuel Alito brought this up while questioning U.S. Solicitor General Prelogar.

JUSTICE ALITO: And it seems that the plain meaning is that the hospital must try to eliminate any immediate threat to the child, but performing an abortion is antithetical to that duty.

Justice Alito said EMTALA doesn’t tell hospitals how to deal with conflicts between the interests of mother and baby… but instead leaves that to state law. He and other conservative justices seemed concerned about the Biden administration’s argument that the government could require federally funded hospitals to break state laws that provide guidance in these conflicts. Here’s Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

JUSTICE BARRETT: It does seem odd that through a side agreement between a private entity and the federal government, the private entity can get out of state law.

Dr. Schmid says the conflicting interests between mother and child in rare health cases raise difficult questions. In particular, when risks to the mom’s health are greater than the possibility of the baby’s survival, what should the laws require of mothers in a secular society?

SCHMID: As I said, I think the crux of the matter comes down to whether or not … we want to accept … a woman’s organ damage… and trade that for a baby's life.

To many pro-lifers and to the state of Idaho, the baby’s life is more important.

Idaho will find out if it can preserve that priority when the Supreme Court issues a decision in the case, expected this summer.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leah Savas.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Twenty-four years ago. South Bend, Indiana. A police lieutenant Gene Eyster was dispatched to rescue an abandoned newborn.

Sound from CBS News:

EYSTER: That was one of the strangest calls I think I’ve ever had: “We have a found baby in a box.” You always wonder, what, what happened?    

You know it took years to find out, but a fellow officer rang him up just a few weeks ago. He said, “Gene, you’re not going to believe this, but the baby in the box? He’s my rookie officer, and he’s sitting right here!”

Rookie Matthew Hegedus-Stewart.

STEWART: Full circle moment. That hit home. I can only imagine from his point of view.

Stewart now wears the same uniform. He patrols the same neighborhoods his rescuer Officer Eyster did all those years ago.

And for his part, Eyster sees a divine hand in all this. Sadly, his only son died suddenly this January.

EYSTER: So the timing couldn’t be any better to help fill a void that I’ve had to deal with.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, April 30th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: caring for the world’s coral reefs.

Coral reefs are sometimes called the ocean’s rainforest. The diverse ecosystem features colonies of small marine invertebrates. They often look like exotic plants, but they’re actually small animals. The structures these species build become home to millions of fish and sea life.

EICHER: Coral reefs are sensitive to changes in the environment. So many people are working hard to protect, preserve, and restore them. WORLD’s Paul Butler has our story:

SOUND: [UNDERWATER DIVERS]

PAUL BUTLER: These divers off the coast of Thailand’s Phuket island aren’t just scuba enthusiasts, they’re citizen conservationists. They’re removing so-called “ghost gear” from the reef. Snagged net fragments, broken traps, discarded fishing lines all tangled together, damaging fragile corals. They’re part of a network of hundreds of divers who send in reports of ghost gear and other entanglements harming the reef.

PATCHARAPORN KAEWMONG: [Speaking in Thai] Waste management is a very big problem. A national, and even global problem.

This woman directs a Marine Endangered Animals Rescue Center on the island. She says waste management is a very big problem. Not just locally, but globally. She believes small personal solutions can help fix the larger issue.

SOUND: [TAKING TRASH AWAY]

A nearby non-government group has another small solution. It coordinates with local fishermen to reduce the amount of discarded fishing gear that ends up in the reef by hauling away old gear and disposing of it properly, addressing some of the problem before it even begins.

SOUND: [GREAT BARRIER REEF ACTIVITY]

But it’s not just trash that threatens the reef. About 3500 miles away, the Great Barrier reef is experiencing an added challenge.

WACHENFELD: So we have seen widespread coral bleaching throughout the southern Great Barrier Reef and in parts of the central and northern Great Barrier Reef.

David Wachenfeld is research director for the Australian Institute Of Marine Science. This summer’s bleaching is the 5th since 2016. It’s not the only location. Bleaching is currently taking place in Kenya, Brazil, parts of the Indian Ocean and Caribbean.

Bleaching is a stress response—most often related to increased water temperature caused by weather patterns like El Nino or larger than usual water runoff from heavy rains and flooding. During bleaching, the corals expel an algae that lives inside its tissues, causing it to lose its color, turning white. Making the reef look like a graveyard.

But bleached corals are not dead. The Great Barrier Reef Foundation says plainly in their FAQs that bleaching is a “natural process and not of particular concern,” though it does make coral more susceptible to starvation and disease.

Bleaching is often seasonal, and cyclical. David Wachenfeld.

WACHENFELD: The far northern Great Barrier Reef and the Torres Strait have actually pretty much escaped this year with very little heat stress and very little bleaching as well.

Added to this natural ebb and flow of the climate, the effects of unregulated anchoring, the proliferation of plastics, and other human pollution have left many once vibrant reefs greatly reduced. Some are even in danger of disappearing.

So there are a handful of groups working to restore stressed and damaged reefs.

SOUND: [AQUARIUMS]

The World Coral Conservatory project is based at Burgers’ Zoo in the Netherlands. It’s working to preserve coral samples from around the world. The scientists behind the project refer to this tank as the “Noah’s Ark” of coral preservation, though it’s more like a seed bank.

SOUND: [DIVERS IN AQUARIUM]

A few weeks ago divers here carefully placed the latest two corals in their 2-billion gallon salt-water tank. The two species were grown in a lab and are currently each smaller than a baseball, but marine biologists like Nienke Klerks say that in the coming years they will slowly mature to full size.

NIENKE KLERKS: One of them is an Acropora or a staghorn coral. This is a relatively fast-growing species, and the other species is Gardineroseris. This is slightly less fast growing, but it's growing more like a plate.

But it’s a slow process.

Pascal Kik is one of the coral caretakers. His job is to make sure the conservation aquarium remains a healthy environment for all the corals:

PASCAL KIK: It's important to have the right salinity, the right temperature. And we try to keep it as stable as possible.

Marine biologists hope to use parts of these corals to repair and repopulate damaged or polluted reefs in the future. It’s a technique already being used by another international group. Coral Vita Farms based in the Bahamas.

SOUND: [SAW BLADE]

Coral reef conservation is nothing new—it’s been around since at least the 1970s. But Coral Vita Farms has moved it into the space age.

HAMDY: So with this system we can control the temperatures and the light intensity, the waves…

Ahmed Hamdy is Farm Manager for Coral Vita Dubai. He spends his days surrounded by shallow saltwater tanks under bright purple lights. Each tank is filled with small plugs of growing corals.

SOUND: [SAW BLADE]

The company is propagating the marine invertebrates under harsher conditions than found in the wild. They hope to prepare these samples for repopulating stressed and damaged reefs.

HAMDY: This is the cutting machine which we use for cutting the coral...

The process is kind of like planting potatoes. Technicians take a living piece of coral and cut it into dice-sized pieces. Then glue the pieces on to golf-ball sized bases.

Depending on the species, their corals take from 6 months to two years to reach transplant status. Last year the company placed about 30,000 corals into the wild.

HAMDY: We are creating a healing environment. and they reach the mature level in a very short time.

In February, Australian scientists announced new data showing roughly 25% more reefs in the world’s oceans than previously thought. Meaning if all the earth’s reefs were brought together in one place, it would be roughly the size of Germany. That’s a lot of area to manage, but thanks to scuba enthusiasts, coral conservationists, and marine biologists, the immense diversity of this crucial ecosystem is understood and cared for better than ever before, one region at a time.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday April 30th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next: the ethical dangers of surrogacy.

A quick warning to parents: this commentary deals candidly with child exploitation. It runs about three minutes.

Here now is WORLD Opinions commentator Emma Waters on a new front in the battle to protect children from adults who intend to harm them.

EMMA WATERS: In a recent sting operation, the FBI arrested Adam Stafford King, a Chicago man, for distributing child sexual assault material and boasting about sexually abusing his nieces and nephews. The arrest came less than a week before he and the man identified as his husband were set to collect their newborn son from a commercial surrogate in California. King had also openly discussed how he preferred boys in the “single digits,” and that he planned to sexually abuse his surrogate-born son.

Commercial surrogacy is a contractual agreement where someone pays a woman to gestate and birth a child for a fee. In the United States, it’s an under-regulated and unaccountable practice. Unlike adoption, the intended parents are not required to undergo a background check or home visit. Male same-sex couples or single men make up a large percentage of this industry’s clients.

Proponents tend to frame surrogacy as a beautiful experience in which a woman helps someone complete their chosen family. This overlooks serious concerns. Critics have pointed out that surrogacy is effectively a form of baby-selling that exploits women who need financial assistance. Moreover, the practice flourishes when loose laws allow bad actors to create children.

Sadly, the recent FBI arrest shows these are not hypothetical concerns. In addition to Adam Stafford King, author Katy Faust describes a growing list of men who have a history of child sexual abuse or intend to abuse their own children gained through surrogacy. And these are just the ones we know about.

Stories like this leave us with one final haunting question: What about the children? At no step in this legal or reproductive process did anyone stop to ask what is best for the child. This newborn son will almost certainly never know his biological mother—she is likely an anonymous egg donor selected from a catalog.

Even in dog breeding, the puppies remain with their mother for six to eight weeks. But not so with surrogacy. The child is typically taken from the only mother he has ever known the moment he is born. And even if the child never meets Adam Stafford King, he will likely be raised by King’s husband and other male partners. This alone makes the child at least eleven times more likely to suffer sexual or physical abuse.

This newborn son will one day realize that he was not conceived in a loving union. Instead, he was purchased through a highly lucrative contract involving in vitro fertilization, or the fertilization of an egg by sperm in a petri dish. In surrogacy, a man buys the egg, rents the womb, and completes the necessary paperwork to create a child. It’s hard to see how that is morally different from buying a child after his birth.

On April 1, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a law that reversed the state’s ban on commercial surrogacy. Notably, both California and Michigan have yet to pass basic safeguards to protect children. Our laws should encourage, whenever possible, married mothers and fathers to raise their children. We should not legalize the buying and selling of children, especially when such contracts reinforce disordered sexual fantasies.

I’m Emma Waters.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow, Washington Wednesday: What changes to part of the foreign intelligence surveillance law mean for Americans. 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 says: I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. —Romans 16:7-18

Go now in grace and peace.

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