The World and Everything in It — April 8, 2020

BRIAN BASHAM, HOST: Good morning!

Iran blames U.S. sanctions for hindering its fight against COVID-19. It’s convinced some in the international community to call for lifting sanctions on humanitarian grounds. We’ll talk to a Middle East analyst who thinks that’s a very bad idea.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

Also World Tour with Africa reporter Onize Ohikere.

Plus a pastor recounts lessons learned during three weeks of quarantine.

And Janie B. Cheaney remembers the last person to feel Jesus’ healing touch in person.

BASHAM: It’s Wednesday, April 8th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Brian Basham.

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

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Coronavirus deaths in NYC top 9/11 » New York City’s death toll from the coronavirus has now eclipsed the number of those killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11. More than 3,200 people have died in the city from COVID-19. 

That came after New York state recorded its biggest one-day jump in deaths—731. 

But as alarming as the one-day increase in deaths might sound, Governor Andrew Cuomo said that’s a “lagging indicator.” The number of deaths reflects the number of severely ill people hospitalized before this week. And he said there is some potentially good news to report. 

CUOMO: Right now, we’re projecting that we are reaching a plateau in the total number of hospitalizations. And you can see the growth and you can see it starting to flatten. Again, this is a projection. It still depends on what we do. 

Statewide, nearly 5,500 people have died.

British prime minister in stable condition in ICU » British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in stable condition with the coronavirus Tuesday in a London hospital’s intensive care unit. Doctors were giving him oxygen, but officials said he was breathing on his own without a ventilator.

Former Prime Minister David Cameron called Johnson’s move to the ICU “worrying news.” 

CAMERON: All of us are praying for Boris and thinking of him and praying, thinking of his family, and hoping that he gets well soon and gets back to Number 10 where I know he wants to be and we all want him to be. 

The 55-year-old Johnson is the first major world leader confirmed to have COVID-19. He checked into the hospital late Sunday with a fever and cough that persisted 10 days after testing positive for the coronavirus. Doctors moved him to the ICU the next night. 

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has temporarily taken over many of the prime minister’s duties to lead the country’s response to the pandemic. Britain has no official post of deputy prime minister or any clear line of succession. 

Secretary of the Navy resigns » Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly has reportedly submitted his resignation after sparking a controversy over his firing of a Navy captain. 

Modly fired USS Theodore Roosevelt Captain Brett E. Crozier on Monday. He said Crozier had shown “extremely poor judgment” in widely distributing a letter calling for urgent help with the COVID-19 outbreak aboard his ship.

Media outlets soon picked up and reported on the letter. That upset some of Crozier’s superiors, including Modly. 

Modly then flew to the aircraft carrier, at port in Guam, and delivered a speech to the crew in which he lambasted Crozier. 

MODLY: If he didn’t think that information was going to get out into the public in this information age that we live in, then he was either: a) Too naive or too stupid to be the commanding officer of a ship like this. 

Modly later issued a public apology for those remarks, but by then the calls for his resignation were already mounting on Capitol Hill. 

Trump removes Defense Dept. watchdog » President Trump has removed the inspector general tapped to chair a special oversight board for the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package. WORLD’s Anna Johansen reports. 

ANNA JOHANSEN, REPORTER: On Tuesday, the president removed Glenn Fine, the acting Defense Department inspector general. He was selected by peers last month to oversee the economic aid spending. Now it’s unclear who will handle that task.

Democrats quickly condemned the news. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump is moving to “undermine oversight.”

The move follows the president’s late-night firing on Friday of Michael Atkinson. He was the intelligence community inspector general who forwarded to Congress a whistleblower complaint that led to Trump’s impeachment in the House. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen. 

David Benham arrested in front of N.C. abortion facility » Pro-life activist and former HGTV star David Benham has posted a video to social media of his recent arrest in front of a North Carolina abortion facility. 

Benham was part of a small group offering counseling to women entering the facility last weekend. 

The video captured his interaction with police and eventual arrest as officers said he was violating the state’s stay-at-home order.  

BENHAM: We are offering essential services to these mothers and you know this. And we are practicing social distancing. We are doing everything well within the ordinance, well within the provisions.
POLICE: It’s a state statute.
BENHAM: It’s well within the statute. We are doing everything.    

Benham called the arrest “government overreach.”

Pro-life activists across the country have faced similar charges for violating stay-at-home orders.

Voters head to polls in Wisconsin despite health warning » Thousands of Wisconsin voters waited hours in long lines to participate in the state’s presidential primary election. Those lines were made longer as volunteers tried their best to keep voters spaced apart. Thousands more stayed home, unwilling to risk their health. Wisconsin is under a stay-at-home order. 

Polls closed last night, but a court ruling prevented officials from revealing the results until next week. 

Singer John Prine dies from coronavirus complications » Singer-songwriter John Prine died Tuesday from complications from the coronavirus. Prine was known for folk songs like “Sam Stone” and “Hello in There.”

MUSIC: [Hello in There]

Prine signed with Atlantic Records and released his first album in 1971. Many artists covered his songs over the years, including Johnny Cash, John Denver, George Strait, and Norah Jones.

John Prine was 73 years old.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: a new WORLD news service for students.

Plus, Janie B. Cheaney reflects on the night of Jesus’s arrest.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER: Today is Wednesday April 8th, 2020.

You’re listening to The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

With the pleasure of introducing Brian Basham—also known as…

LYRICS: [The new kid in town!]

BRIAN BASHAM: New, yeah. Kid, not so much!

EICHER: Relative term, Big Bash. Grandpas call everybody “kid.”

LYRICS: [There’s a new kid in towwwwwwn!]

BASHAM: I’ll take it!

EICHER: Everybody’s talkin’ about the new kid, and we’re talking about a new project here at WORLD.

LYRICS: [Everybody’s talkin’ bout the new kid in town]

We do have something really important and exciting to talk about. Our kids’ news team is working on this and I have the fun of working on it with you, Brian. World Watch!

BASHAM: Yeah! Usually I’m the only Basham, you all know the Fetching Mrs. Basham

EICHER: Thanks for lending her to us, and lending the name “Basham” to our movie reviewer. It really fits!

BASHAM: Obviously, there’s been a giant hole for biblically sound news aimed at jr. high and high schoolers. And for adults too, at least on TV. But really, we want that news to be exciting. We want it to fun, but we also want the kids to learn something everyday while at the same time learning how to discern what’s true about God’s big world and what’s true coming out of the news and what’s just spin.

EICHER: And TV’s where you come from. You gave up a great morning TV news gig in Charlotte, that’s how much you believe in this project!

BASHAM: It’s going to be a 10 minute TV tv newscast coming at the kids through the web. And so, that’s going to give you a reliable spot they can land without you worrying about what they’re seeing.

We’re working on it now, building the TV team, and it’s going to be awesome! 

I love being with you on this radio team! Because I know a lot of our parents and kids are in this audience.

BRIAN BASHAM: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: COVID-19 in the Middle East. 

Iran first admitted having coronavirus cases in February. Nearly two months later it remains the epicenter of the outbreak in the Middle East. More than 60,000 people are infected with the virus, and more than 3,700 have died. Of course, those are official government numbers out of Tehran. So the actual toll is likely much higher.

NICK EICHER: Last month, Tehran’s leaders asked for a $5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. They also demanded the United States lift sanctions imposed when Washington pulled out of the 2015 nuclear agreement. On Monday, a group of former U.S. diplomats and European leaders gave their backing to that plan, calling it necessary to fight the disease. They sent a letter to the White House urging President Trump to ease his “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.

But not everyone thinks that’s a good idea. Behnam Ben Taleblu is one of them. He’s a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. And he joins us now to explain why. Good morning!

BENHAM BEN TALEBLU: Good morning. Great to be with you and thanks for having me.

EICHER: Let’s start with the messages coming out of Iran. On the one hand, Tehran told the United Nation that U.S. sanctions are hampering its fight against the coronavirus. But I understand that in their own government meetings leaders are telling a different story. Can you talk about that?

TALEBLU: Sure. I mean, most unfortunately, though, you have the regime paralleling its talking points at home with some talking points abroad. And for the past 41 years—and the Islamic Republic has been around for 41 years—they’ve often looked to point a finger abroad for the problems at home. We now know because of selective leaks and different reporting and the firsthand accounts, that the regime botched the response to the coronavirus. And, in fact, the regime created a coronavirus crisis. 

What the government and what the people are suffering from isn’t a sanctions issue. It’s a management issue. It’s a style and substance issue. They chose to under-report, downplay, and dare I even say ignore and neglect the threat posed by the coronavirus crisis because in the aftermath of the killing of the commander of the IRGC—the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force Qassem Soleimani—as well as their failed strike on the U.S. bases, as well as the downing of the Ukraine airliner, the regime was looking for a large domestic rally and they looked to project onto the late February parliamentary elections a barometer of legitimacy. 

We now know that this was one of the lowest turnouts ever, but the regime encouraged mass turnout and did not address, mention, properly deal with the public health crisis that was about to become the coronavirus crisis. So, negligence there rather than sanctions. Once they caught onto it, they downplayed it. And then after they downplayed it, they botched it. This is about government management, not about economics. 

Just about a day and a half ago you had Iran’s supreme leader tap into the sovereign wealth fund, if you will. It’s like a national reserve, a national fund. This is money on hand, but this is also too little too late. Why did the regime wait until early-to-mid-April to tap into this fund? They had the money. Were they trying to simply elicit a change in western posture? I believe so.

EICHER: Yeah, and that’s what I was going to get to next. And, again, to be clear, you’re saying that Iran has what it needs to battle back against the coronavirus. Nobody is suggesting that we take a stance of, ‘Oh well, too bad, you’re a rogue nation. We’re going to let you die of a terrible disease.’ Nobody’s saying that.

TALEBLU: No, no one is saying that. And even in populations, even in countries where there are rogue states that are adversarial with the international system and adversarial with America, America has bent over backwards before to try to provide humanitarian aid. I think Iran has been their case in point. The U.S. has tried to provide aid in response to Iranian earthquakes in the past. Aid in response to Iranian flooding in the past. This is not a bipartisan issue. This is a nonpartisan issue in America. Republican, Democrat presidents have tried to do this before. 

So, it’s not out of the ordinary for the Trump administration to try to offer humanitarian aid to Iran at this juncture.

EICHER: OK. And I’d like to pick up on another thread that you were developing in the first answer, which is an idea of what you think Iran is trying to do. And I want to suggest maybe this is just an effort to gain international sympathy during a difficult time in hopes of that larger goal of lifting sanctions and getting right back to work on a nuclear program and all the rest. In other words, don’t let a good crisis go to waste. Is that what you think?

TALEBLU: Absolutely. And there has been a unity of purpose in the talking points at home and abroad by regime elites in Tehran. And they’ve tried to use every crisis to put forward a different iteration of the same argument, which is that we are suffering because of Western sanctions. We are suffering because of American “arrogance” is a term they use. Lift the sanctions and all will be good. 

Whereas really the sanctions game, even in the Trump administration—which has a max pressure campaign underway against Tehran—is responding to rather than driving the crisis. 

The month of March, for instance, we saw several different iterations of sanctions coming out of the Treasury Department and State Department. Still, that is proof that the U.S. government is playing catch-up on the sanctions filed to the threats Iran, its proxies, and its bad banks and illicit networks pose. These activities by Iran are still being underwritten and are still ongoing in peak coronavirus crisis conditions. Iran’s entire defense establishment—not just the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and military—but the law-enforcement forces and those who crack skulls at home are getting growth spurts in their budgets under sanctions and under the coronavirus crisis. 

So, again, Iran is acting like not a normal nation. Normal nations when there’s a public health crisis will put their people first. That isn’t what’s happening here. Instead the argument is being put forward first to lift sanctions so this bad behavior can continue unimpeded.

EICHER: And yet that argument is gaining some ground internationally, as I mentioned at the beginning, among some European capitals and with former U.S. diplomats. Why do you suppose? 

TALEBLU: Well, there’s many different reasons, but the Occam’s Razor approach, the simplest is the most powerful, most explanatory is of course you see the crisis and you want to do something about it. I’m an Iranian-American. I see the crisis and my heart goes out to people from where ancestrally I’m from. So, I assume that that group of people first wants to do that. 

But one can’t forget that that issue—the coronavirus crisis—is not divorced from some of the other issues that Washington and Tehran have with each other.

And this gets to the second reason, where there’s a large cadre of folks—former diplomats, prominent think-tankers, prominent public personalities both in Europe and in America—that were part of this negotiating process, the 2015 JCPOA—that’s the Joint Comprehensive Point of Action Nuclear Deal, which Obama inked and Trump dismantled—that still want to revive that deal, that still want to revive that legacy. And not only is that legacy not revivable because of Iran’s myriad violations of that deal, but that legacy’s not revivable because even with the deal being in place, some of its major restrictions are already or would be collapsing. So, it has limited value to want to return to that. So, the argument to lift sanctions, suspend sanctions and then go back to what the status quo was, which was really a private, quiet call to go back to that nuclear deal, which really handicapped American tools of punishment and coercion and deterrence is also what I think has been going on. And on that front, it is, I think, somewhat more sinister because it’s also using a crisis to put forward a political argument.

EICHER: At the end of last year, we saw an unprecedented level of protests in Iran and the outbreak of coronavirus has seems to have halted any sort of momentum toward regime change that might have been building. What’s your sense of this? Do you think that the undercurrent of anger at government leaders has dissipated or do you think that it has just gone underground? What would you say to that?

TALEBLU: I would say there’s been a temporary pause. There’s been very interesting protests going on in Iran from 2017 until present. Because from 2017 until present those leading the protests across myriad different cities did not begin in Tehran, the nation’s capital, where there is an educated and urbane well-connected population. It began from the periphery. And these are really from 2017 to present, including the one in November-December 2019, are really blue-collar folks, people who have social grievances, economic grievances, very much so political grievances, but are being sustained by their larger distaste with how their government acts at home and how their government acts abroad.

So, history tells us that there will be another. There could be a brief blip because of the coronavirus issue. And then I think it may return.

EICHER: Behnam Ben Taleblu is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in tightly packed but socially distanced Washington, D.C. Thanks so much for joining us today. Stay safe. Stay healthy.

TALEBLU: You too. Thank you so much. Stay safe and stay healthy to you and your listeners.

NICK EICHER: Up next, World Tour with Africa reporter Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: France knife attack—We start today in Europe. 

A Sudanese man attacked residents of a small French village on Saturday, killing two and injuring five others. The man attacked several people on the street and in a tobacco store, then entered a butcher shop.

AUDIO: [SPEAKING FRENCH]

The owner of the store says the man climbed over the counter, grabbed a knife, and started assaulting customers. Police arrested the man near the scene of the attack as he knelt on the sidewalk praying in Arabic. When they searched the suspect’s home, authorities found handwritten papers that included a complaint about living in a “country of unbelievers.”

Ukraine forest fires—Next, we go to Ukraine. 

AUDIO: [GEIGER COUNTER BEEPING]

Radiation levels near Chernobyl spiked as firefighters battled to contain two blazes in the area. 

The fires broke out Saturday afternoon near the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster. By Monday, responders were able to put out one of the fires, but the second continued to spread.

Authorities said radiation levels near the fire spiked to nearly five times the maximum natural amount.

Ukrainian police said they tracked down a person suspected of starting the blaze. They also beefed up patrols in the area to prevent new fires.

Human rights lawyer released—Next, to Asia.

AUDIO: [PROTESTERS YELLING]

A prominent Chinese human rights lawyer was released after five years in prison. Wang Quanzhang was arrested in 2015 after defending the rights of religious minorities. 

Authorities released him Sunday but didn’t allow him to rejoin his family in Beijing. Instead, they placed him in quarantine for 14 days as a precaution against COVID-19. 

His wife worries that authorities are using the pandemic as an excuse to keep him under house arrest indefinitely. She said she doesn’t trust the government and she’ll continue to fight until they are reunited.

India turning trains into hospitals—We end today in India.

AUDIO: [ELECTRICAL WORK, SPARKS]

India’s railway network is converting old train carriages into isolation rooms for coronavirus patients. When the country’s prime minister declared a nationwide lockdown at the end of March, Indian Railways suspended the operation of all passenger trains. That left thousands of trains sitting idle. 

Now, the network is remodeling those train cars and turning them into mobile hospital rooms. Each repurposed car is designed to accommodate up to 16 patients. The trains could then be sent to any location facing a shortage of hospital beds. The first 5,000 isolation wards should be ready within the next few weeks.

That’s this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

BRIAN BASHAM: Today is Wednesday, April 8th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Brian Basham.

NICK EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a journey through coronavirus quarantine. 

Back on February 21st, the Grand Princess Cruise Ship departed for a two-week cruise to Hawaii. On its return, some passengers and crew members started showing symptoms. Twenty-one people tested positive. So, the ship stayed out to sea while officials figured out where to send passengers for quarantine.

BASHAM: We connected with a pastor from Santa Rosa, California, who was on board the ship along with his wife, daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren. He recorded an audio diary documenting his journey through three weeks of quarantine. 

This is his story, in his words.

BARNEY CARGILE: This is Barney Cargile. Our family has been on the Grand Princess for the past 19 days. We’ve been on quarantine for the coronavirus. 

NEWSCAST: This is still very much a plan in progress, but after four days of uncertainty, just a few hours ago, passengers aboard that ship finally notified that they will be off-loaded, just across the bay from me…

Woke up this morning and I’m standing out on the balcony of our ship. There’s a full moon reflecting on the water. The lights of the city are just twinkling. San Francisco to my left, Oakland to my right. The morning traffic…It’s an exciting morning. It’s really exciting because we got our luggage tags this morning, which means we are getting off the ship today. 

NEWSCAST: The Grand Princess with its passengers passed—about an hour ago—under the Golden Gate Bridge after…

We are getting ready to leave the ship. Feeling a little bit antsy and anxious. We’re ready to go. There are people around here that are complaining a lot. But overall what we’ve found is that people are really stepping up, especially on the crew. It’s bringing out the best. And we’re feeling blessed, but we are ready to move into the next phase with being in isolation where we’ll be at Travis Airforce Base.

NEWSCAST: Their ship has finally come in after days at sea, confined to their cabins, passengers on the Grand Princess can finally see an end to their cruise.

Well today is day 20 of our adventure. And there were some interesting things that took place last night. We were called out of our room about 5 p.m. and went through a long process. First of all standing in line and then finally we were loaded on the buses. They had to go through all the government protocol and so forth. 

NEWSCAST: Throughout the day, we saw one charter bus after another taking passengers away…

Eventually we were brought to Travis Air Force base. And we sat for hours, at least three hours on our bus before we finally were unloaded. And we got to our room around 2 a.m. So this has been the roughest day so far. 

One thing that’s kind of cool, we got here and our rooms, we didn’t have any coffee, no cups, no shampoo. There’s different areas in different buildings that they have different supplies, and so we would meet with people and say “hey, I have some shampoo.” “Well hey I have some coffee.” “Well let me trade one of my shampoos for one of your coffees pods.” It’s amazing how you come to appreciate the little things in life that you didn’t appreciate before. When’s the last time you got excited about styrofoam coffee cups? 

This is Barney Cargile. It is Saturday, March 21st. This is our 17th day of quarantine. The truth is, nobody wants this but we can have one of two attitudes…we can either see ourselves as a victim or we can accept what’s happened and we can look for the blessings in it. 

I’ve got no complaints. We’ve been well cared for, we get our temperature taken twice a day. The food is fine. We are in a small, comfortable apartment, and we’ve actually been building relationships with a lot of those that are actually serving us. Gotten to know their names. Gotten to know a little bit about their lives. And the residents here. We have a balcony which we really love going out there during the day. So it’s been nice in that way, but we really do miss home.

NEWSCAST: Rog, the cruise ship evacuees have been waiting and planning for this day…

Today, probably more than any other day, there’s some uncertainty about going home because we don’t know what to expect. We hear stories from people that it’s like a ghost town where we live in Santa Rosa. But I’ve just gotta say what’s really helped us through this time has been we’ve really been able to spend time in the Word and time with God. That has been such a blessing. That’s probably the biggest thing we are going to miss.

AUDIO: [CAR ARRIVING/GETTING OUT OF CAR]

This is Barney Cargile with one final episode in our adventure. And that is we finally came home! It’s just interesting. We went from quarantine on the ship, to quarantine at Travis Airforce base for two weeks, and finally we come home and, guess what:

NEWCOME: We direct a statewide order for all people to stay at home…

We’re in quarantine again like most everyone around us. My wife has a retail store, which is our primary source of income and it’s shut down right now. So what’s going to happen when we open back up? Are we going to be able to stay in business?

I’ll just say it this way, we’re forced to depend on God. He’s the one, and we know that! And God is our source of provision. Not our bank account, not our employer, certainly not the government. It’s God! He’s the one who’s promised to provide for us. 

So I just want to say our adventure has ended. But we’ve started a whole new adventure, joining millions of others in which we are just going to wait on the Lord and see what he does next.

BASHAM: A special thanks to Pastor Barney Cargile for taking the time to record these observations throughout his quarantine especially for us at WORLD.

NICK EICHER: Today is Wednesday, April 8th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

BRIAN BASHAM: And I’m Brian Basham. Janie B. Cheaney now on the last person to feel Jesus’s healing touch here on earth.

JANIE B. CHEANEY COMMENTATOR: Nobody knew what was happening. It was so noisy and confusing that the criminal, whom the guards would recognize by day, had to be identified—with a kiss, of all things. Flickering shards of torchlight revealed open mouths, eyes narrowed in rage or wide in shock. Resin sputtered, iron clashed, fist met flesh—and in the shuffle, fingers gripped a sword hilt. A man screamed; silence fell. Then the Rabbi spoke his last rabbinic word: something about drinking the cup and fulfilling the Scriptures. 

The ear lay abandoned, while its owner whimpered, clutching the bloody gap where it used to be. Malchus never thought about his ears—they were just there, part of him. Until this one wasn’t. He’s heard of Messiah; probably has even heard Messiah, who often ended his teaching with, “He that has an ear, let him hear!”

Simon Peter, the assailant, may not have been aiming at anything, just striking out impulsively to start the revolution. But this phase of the revolution was already over, its only casualty a shred of skin and cartilage. One sword stroke can’t stop the plan rolling ponderously onward, but before it crushes Messiah, he calls a truce, bends down, and picks up the ear. 

He has straightened bones, restored sight to the blind, even life to the dead, so this is nothing to him. It’s tender and telling, though, and it makes a point: I don’t need your swords or strategies. I want your ears.

For the next few days, both Malchus and his ear are forgotten. The crucifixion of the Nazarene was all the news and no one remembered that last little miracle. But suppose, early on the third day, Malchus awoke from his haunted sleep with a peculiar buzzing in his right ear. Or more like a song, with words he couldn’t understand. When the city’s normal clatter rose with the sun, traces of that song lingered in his ear. 

Malchus, loyal servant of the high priest, never questioned a priestly word. By noon, priestly words were chasing rumors like sandals slapping at flies: They stole the body! It’s a trick! It never happened! 

But when Malchus heard the news, everything made sense. The ear Messiah restored kept listening. The sweet song began to speak. The power of life that brought Jesus back from the dead was in him.

What happened to Malchus? Probably an ordinary span of days ending in ordinary death. The song in his ear would fade, but if that life was planted in him, he is hearing it now.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

NICK EICHER: Tomorrow: Many Americans are half way through week four at home. But we’re not the only ones cut off from family, friends, and community. We’ll tell you what quarantine’s been like in other countries.

And, we’ll do our best to help relieve cabin fever, and offer an escape with a virtual hike in the great outdoors.

That and more tomorrow. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

BRIAN BASHAM: And I’m Brian Basham.

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 reminds us that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.

I hope you’ll have a great rest of the day. We’ll talk to you tomorrow!

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