The World and Everything in It: August 21, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. My name is Annette Harrison. I live in Salem, Oregon with my wonderful husband Byron, and I teach at Corban University where I prepare people to go out and make a difference in the world for Jesus Christ. I hope you enjoy today's program.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning!

Day three today of the Democratic National Convention …

MICHELLE OBAMA: Kamala Harris is more than ready for this moment.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Washington Wednesday and politics reporter Carolina Lumetta is standing by from Chicago. Also today, World Tour.

And later, some teenagers who spent the summer training for a very specific calling.

AUDIO: We have a plane, we have a helicopter, but we don’t have a pilot.

And finding joy beyond politics. Commentary from WORLD’s Janie B. Cheaney.

MAST: It’s Wednesday, August 21st. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: DNC day-2 » Today is day-3 of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Last night former President Barack Obama fired up the crowd.

OBAMA: America’s ready for a new chapter. America’s ready for a better story. We are ready for a President Kamala Harris.

Obama praised his former running mate, President Joe Biden for stepping aside and making way for a younger contender.

OBAMA: The torch has been passed. Now, it is up to all of us to fight for the America we believe in.

And he added that it will, in fact, be a fight, predicting a very close race.

Democrats also heard last night from former first lady Michelle Obama and self-declared socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

SANDERS: We need to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right, not a privilege.

Vice presidential nominee, Gov. Tim Walz will take center stage tonight.

Schumer edging closer to axing filibuster » Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also spoke last night accusing Donald Trump of antisemitism.

SCHUMER: I want my grandkids and all grandkids to never, never face discrimination because of who they are. But Donald Trump? This is a guy who pedals antisemitic stereotypes.

He also raised the stakes of the 2024 election by signaling a major power grab, should the Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress come January.

Schumer suggested he could maneuver around or even get rid of the Senate’s filibuster rule in order to pass sweeping abortion rights legislation at the national level.

Trump in Michigan » Meantime, Donald Trump campaigned in Michigan Tuesday, vowing to “make America safe again.”

TRUMP:  The border czar Kamala Harris has allowed hordes of illegal, illegal alien criminals to literally stampede into our country. We're going to end that on day one. We're going to close our border. We're going to get all of the bad ones out and we're going to get them out fast.

It was part of Trump’s battleground campaign swing designed to counter the Democratic National Convention.

He stood alongside sheriff’s deputies in the city of Howell and labeled Harris the “ringleader” of what he called a “Marxist attack on law enforcement.”

Tony Blinken in the Middle East » Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Middle Eastern leaders are making what some are calling one last push to broker a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas. Blinken spoke from Doha, Qatar on Tuesday amid the cease-fire talks.

BLINKEN: Our message is simple, it's clear, and it's urgent. We need to get the cease-fire and hostage agreement over the finish line.

Blinken met with the president of Egypt Tuesday morning before traveling to Qatar.

Ukraine latest » Russian sources claim that Ukraine’s military has either destroyed or damaged all three of the bridges over the Seym River in western Russia as Kyiv’s incursion into western Russia enters its third week.

Ukrainian forces are working to build a buffer zone … to stop future attacks on Ukraine from Russian territory.

Pentagon spokesman, Major General Pat Ryder:

RYDER: Russia has really struggled to respond, you continue to see some Ukrainian advances in that regard.

Some analysts believe Kyiv’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk oblast is changing the trajectory of the war.

New Hampshire Trans Soccer ruling » A federal judge in New Hampshire is letting a teenage boy play on a girls soccer team because he identifies as a girl despite a state law aimed at protecting girls’ sports. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Republican Gov. Chris Sununu signed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act into law last month. It requires public middle and highschool students to play sports with teammates matching their sex at birth.

The judge’s order this week stems from a lawsuit aiming to overturn those protections, alleging the law is unconstitutional and discriminatory.

The order will allow the boy to compete on the girls team as the case plays out in court. For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: More from the Democratic National Convention. Plus, World Tour.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 21st of August.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

Time now for Washington Wednesday in Chicago.

ANNOUNCER: …the President of the United States.

The last time the Democratic National Convention was held in the Windy City was 1996. That’s when the party renominated President Bill Clinton ahead of his second term.

BILL CLINTON: Thank you! Thank you all!

It’s only been a month since Joe Biden left the 2024 race, and so more time’s been spent preparing the DNC for Biden than not. The party already had its platform written for a second Biden term.

But now with Kamala Harris at the top, how is the convention different from the original plan?

MAST: Joining us from Chicago to talk about it is WORLD’s Washington Bureau reporter Carolina Lumetta.

Carolina, good morning.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: Good morning from the Windy City

MAST: Going into this convention, we already knew who would be on the ticket thanks to a virtual roll call that took place earlier this month. It also seemed certain there would be protests. For months, groups unhappy with President Biden's support for Israel had been planning to march on the DNC in Chicago.

Carolina, you were there in the streets when the convention opened. What did you see and hear?

LUMETTA: Right, Lindsay. So, we knew that hundreds of protest groups were converging in Chicago this week, and they had their kickoff event on Monday, called the March on the DNC. There were 1000s of activists all protesting the Democratic Party and Kamala Harris as its nominee over her policy in Gaza.

PROTESTORS: Harris, Harris you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide…

They say that they are not going to vote for her or for other Democrats, even though they affiliate closely with the Democratic Party, because they've identified Gaza as their number one issue. And it's a contrast that we saw encapsulated a bit in something that Cornel West said when he arrived at the rally for some speeches before the March happened. And Cornel West has been running a Green Party candidacy for president. Here's what he had to say about Kamala Harris

CORNEL WEST: And we simply want to say, a black face in a high place in the same empire, the same predatory capitalist processes, the same policies of genocide, do not move us. (applause)

MAST: Well, moving inside. President Biden was originally scheduled to speak on Thursday night as the nominee, instead, he appeared on the opening night giving a speech in support of Kamala Harris. What did convention goers you spoke with have to say about that change?

LUMETTA: Well, delegates here are actually really excited about this change that has completely shaken up the presidential campaign this year. There's a huge party atmosphere, and they're very excited about Kamala Harris as their candidate now. The mood is actually very similar to the Republican National Convention last month, where Democrats now say that their party is the one with all the momentum and the energy.

I spoke with one Michigan voter, Marquan Jackson, who actually changed his plans to come to the DNC as soon as he heard that Kamala Harris was running,

MARQUAN JACKSON: The blend was perfect. Like, seeing the crowd erupt when Hillary Clinton came out, spoke to our past, but seeing how excited folks were when Kamala, when Vice President Harris came out, speaks to where we're going.

MAST: So Carolina, tell us a bit about Biden's message on Monday night.

LUMETTA: So he gave the keynote speech on Monday night specifically to endorse Harris. But we also saw a lot of the same material that he used in his previous campaign speeches, with the new angle that this was an emphasis on what his legacy is, rather than pushing for re-election.

He dabbed away a few tears from his eyes as delegates chanted, “Thank you Joe, thank you Joe,” which several told me that encapsulates how they feel about his administration. But notably, this chant didn't really surface as a popular theme until he dropped out of the race.

And a top moment on Monday night was when he quoted Norah Jones's American Anthem, and the final line in that song is "America, I gave my best to you."

JOE BIDEN: For 50 years, like many of you, I have given my heart and soul to our nation, and I've been blessed a million times in return by the support of the American people. I've either been too young to be in the Senate because I wasn't 30 yet and too old to stay as president. But I hope you know how grateful I am to all of you.

But of course, his entire purpose for being there was to pass the torch to the next candidate. He links Kamala Harris to a lot of what he called wins in his administration, and said that she was part of one of his top commitments that he followed through on to select the first black woman to serve as his running mate.

JOE BIDEN: Selecting Kamala was the very first decision I made before I became, when I became our nominee, and it was the best decision I made my whole career.

MAST: Back in 1996 Hillary Clinton gave a speech at the DNC in Chicago as First Lady. Then in 2016 she expected to be the first woman to become president. This time, she was on hand again to throw her support behind Harris, someone you could argue didn't work nearly as hard as Clinton to get where she is. So, what was the former Secretary of State's message to the DNC this time Carolina?

LUMETTA: Well, Lindsay, that was another really interesting part about the first convention night. Hillary Clinton used to be in Kamala Harris's shoes, making a nomination acceptance speech, and worked hard to become the first female president, but is now putting her weight behind Kamala Harris instead. We do know that Clinton and Harris are actually quite close. They speak of their friendship often. They're in communication a lot, and the Clintons were some of the first ones to formally endorse Harris when Biden dropped out, but before she even said if she would run. Clinton revisited the theme of breaking through that glass ceiling in her speech supporting Harris on Monday

HILLARY CLINTON: Together, we've put a lot of cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling. And tonight, tonight so close to breaking through once and for all.

MAST: Well, then on Tuesday night, headline speakers included former president and first lady Barack and Michelle Obama, as well as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Any highlights there, Carolina?

LUMETTA: Well, the Obamas are known for giving these very statesmanlike speeches, and delegates were very excited to hear from them. They delivered just that last night to a very exuberant audience. And let me tell you, Lindsay, it got so loud during so many points during these two speeches.

MICHELLE OBAMA: America, hope is making a comeback.

I saw several delegates with tears in their eyes watching the jumbotron while former First Lady Michelle Obama spoke about expecting dignity from the President, something she said Trump simply doesn't have.

Back when President Biden announced his withdrawal from the race, the Obamas were slower than others to throw their support behind Harris, but by last night, they were all in.

MICHELLE OBAMA: Kamala Harris is more than ready for this moment. She is one of the most qualified people ever to seek the office of the presidency.

Then to close out the night, former President Barack Obama addressed the convention, he spent some time first thanking President Biden for his service, and he praised Kamala Harris, before talking then about concerns with the opposition.

He highlighted this theme I've noticed of the convention so far that accuses Trump of caring only for himself that he doesn't care about and can't represent ordinary Americans.

BARACK OBAMA: We do not need four more years of bluster and bumbling and chaos, we have seen that movie before, and we all know that the sequel is usually worse. 

He then concluded his more than 30 minute speech with this audience-rousing vision for the future of the country.

BARACK OBAMA: Our job is to convince people that democracy can actually deliver. And in doing that, we can just point to what we've already accomplished. We can't just rely on the ideas of the past. We need to chart a new way forward to meet the challenges of today. And Kamala understands this.

MAST: Well before we go, is there anything that surprised you to discover while covering the convention?

LUMETTA: Well, I will say there does appear to be some lack of organization here compared to the Republican National Convention. For example, we have two completely separate locations for council and caucus meetings and the actual convention sessions all the way across town. There's not clear, delineated space for press. We have more than 200 invited social media content creators who are all over the place. There have been massive bottlenecks at security and really frustrated delegates at all of these kind of logistics. On the first night, speeches were running about 90 minutes behind schedule, which kicked Biden out of his East Coast prime time slot and canceled a James Taylor performance.

Yet last night was quite a bit smoother, but we've still got a lot of major news coming tonight. We'll hear from Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to formally accept his nomination as running mate. We'll also hear from former President Bill Clinton. And then it all culminates on Thursday night, when, as we expect, Vice President Kamala Harris will formally accept her nomination.

MAST: Carolina Lumetta covers elections for WORLD’s Washington Bureau. Thanks for this report!

LUMETTA: Thanks for having me

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour.

AUDIO: [Sound from parade]

ONIZE OHIKERE: Taliban Anniversary—We begin today’s roundup in Afghanistan, where the Taliban held parades across the country to mark the three-year anniversary of the group’s return to power.

The parades featured displays of military power—one was held at what was once the largest U.S. and NATO military base in the country.

KABIR: [Speaking Pashto]

Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Mohammad Abdul Kabir says here that the Taliban has provided work for the Afghan people and that foreign nations should cooperate with them.

But China is the only non-Muslim country to have formal relations with the Taliban as a legitimate government and the World Food Program estimates that one in four Afghans are living in food insecurity.

Human Rights Watch also reports that the Taliban is systematically keeping women and girls from work, education, and traveling freely. They did not allow women at the anniversary celebrations.

AUDIO: [Afghan resident speaking Pashto]

This Afghan resident says billions of dollars that belong to the Afghan nations are frozen. He says the West tried to kill them with bombs and now it is trying to kill them with poverty.

U.S. officials established a trust in 2022 with over $3 billion of frozen Afghan funds. The money could be used toward expenses like electricity payments or debt payments that could keep the country open to development assistance. In February, a board member for the fund said that the Taliban has not requested any of the money.

Trial starting for Kenya cult leaders—We move now to Kenya…

AUDIO: [Sound from courtroom]

… where survivors of a doomsday starvation cult began to give testimony in the trial of the cult’s leaders.

The leader said parents should starve themselves and their children to death so they could meet Jesus. So far, police have found more than 400 bodies, and some people are still missing.

One 9-year-old girl says her parents denied her and her siblings food and water for eight days and began dressing her in what she described as her “death clothes.” She was wearing those clothes when officers rescued her.

Prosecutors say they’ve prepared about 90 witnesses to testify.

Pakistan flooding—Now, to Pakistan where flooding from monsoon downpours has killed 209 people.

AUDIO: [Pakistani woman speaking Urdu]

This Pakistan resident says the floodwater broke an embankment and flooded her house. She says her children’s clothes, their groceries, everything was washed away.

AUDIO: [Pakistan official speaking Urdu]

This Pakistan official is saying that they are working to make sure the water doesn’t accumulate.

The country will likely get more rain this week and monsoon season usually lasts through September.

Last year’s monsoon season resulted in nearly 2,000 deaths.

India, Kashmir election—We end today’s round-up in Kashmir, where India is overseeing the first elections since 2019.

Pakistan and India split control of Kashmir about 75-years-ago, though both claim the entire territory. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stripped Kashmir of its special statehood status in 2019, saying there were ideological differences between the largely Hindu nation and the Muslim-majority area.

AUDIO: [Kashmir resident speaking Urdu]

This Kashmir resident says people have suffered because no one was representing them. But other residents worry the elected representatives won’t have enough power to do anything and that India should restore statehood.

That’s it for today’s World Tour.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere with reporting and writing from Mary Muncy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: So, you’re driving down the road pretty confident you didn’t take a wrong turn or anything when all the sudden it seems your eyes are playing tricks on you. Audio from WSAZ-3:

AUDIO: That’s a kangaroo!

Problem is she’s not in Australia.

BUGS BUNNY: I knew I should’ve made a left turn at Albuquerque.

Right? Actually she was in West Virginia and so was that 7-foot-tall marsupial.

As it turns out West Virginia is one of three states in the U.S. allowing kangaroos as pets, and this one was a got-away.

Evidently, the roo found an open gate, and joy-hopped his way into the road causing a traffic jam.

Seems it was the kangaroo that maybe took a wrong turn in Albuquerque.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, August 21st. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Teenagers taking to the sky!

Becoming a missionary pilot is a big commitment. The training process can take 7 to 10 years and cost thousands of dollars.

As baby boomers continue to retire, the need for new missionary pilots is becoming critical. What can ministries do now to inspire the next generation of pilots?

World Journalism Institute mid-career graduate Theresa Haynes paid a visit to a mission aviation summer camp in Washington state. And she brings us the story.

THERESA HAYNES: It is lunchtime in the hangar at the Mission Aviation Training Academy or MATA. A group of teen girls have more on their minds than pulled pork, beans, and rice. Half of them have just finished a flying lesson, and the other half are getting ready to take off.

STUDENTS: I got super lightheaded. You should have learned it in aerodynamics. It’s because the blood rushed to your feet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eighteen students are spending the week learning how to fly a plane. Each day, they spend three hours in ground school, learning the basics of controlling an aircraft. Then they spend another three hours in a Cessna 172. Taking turns, each student sits in the pilot’s seat with an FAA-certified instructor and flies the plane.

JEREMY CROWELL: All we got to do is relax that back pressure, and then we'll give it full power to recover from that, and then hold the climb pitch attitude, and then we'll bring the flaps off 10 degrees at a time …

Flight instructor Jeremy Crowell prepares students to practice recovering from engine stalls.

CROWELL: Why do we want to know how to do a stall? Well, number one, to avoid it, because at low altitudes, stalls can be deadly…

SOUND: [Engine starts up and begins to taxi away]

For 17-year-old Naomi Thomas, flying an aircraft is very different from driving a car. For one thing, it is three-dimensional. And while some of the instruments look similar, they have different functions. In a car the pedals control the gas and brakes. In an airplane they control the rudder.

NAOMI THOMAS: It's more complicated, but not as hard as I thought it would be.

Hannah Perszyk, who is also 17, grew up near an airport. Before camp, she had never been in an airplane, but always dreamed of being a pilot. When she became a Christian three years ago, she started thinking about missions. When she heard about the aviation camp she realized it was something she could do.

HANNAH PERSZYK: Oh, wait, I could actually do this. And it sounds fun. And it's something I would enjoy doing. Because I have a passion for reaching the lost. And I like flying.

Connecting aviation with missions is an important aspect of the summer camp. MATA director Dary Fink says every evening, they focus on God’s heart for the lost.

DARY FINK: We talk about the billions of people that are in poverty, are hurting, in conflict and war and famine.

He tells students that missionary pilots serve a vital role in reaching the world’s most remote people.

FINK: Can the airplane be used to bring medicine and food and Bibles and teachers and doctors and hope…

Five years ago, Abigail McMillan attended aviation camp and began asking God if she should be a missionary pilot.

ABIGAIL MCMILLAN: When I committed my life to Christ, I remember thinking very clearly, well, I'm not living my life for myself anymore.

After graduating high school, McMillan served as a nanny for a missionary family in Brazil. After that, she attended Bible college at Ethnos 360 Bible Institute.

MCMILLAN: And I actually had a friend at Bible College who sort of begged me to, you know, come. We have a plane and a helicopter, but we don't have a pilot. Come fly for us when you finish your training.

When she returned home to Washington, McMillan began training as an airplane mechanic. Now, at 21, she is working on her private pilot’s license.

Gary Elliott is the curriculum director at MATA, and he helped start the camp in 2007. He says many ministries are desperate for pilots.

GARY ELLIOTT: We had a case, some years back, where there's a hospital in Africa and they had a Cessna 206 there at the hospital, for medical evacuation purposes, to fly patients from these remote locations into the hospital. And the plane was just sitting there with no pilot.

AUDIO: [Students planning cross country flight]

The aviation campers are gathered around a conference table. They each have a planning chart and a map of the Puget Sound. They are calculating distance, weight and fuel consumption for their cross-country flight. Tomorrow each of them will fly about 50 nautical miles.

FINK: We pray before every flight. It's in the checklist. We've done everything we know how to do and now we give it to the Lord and ask him to help it be a learning session and edifying to each other. And to thank you Lord, that we get to see the Earth. Only a few humans in history have ever been able to see from God's perspective.

McMillan also continues to pray as she looks forward to serving on the mission field.

MCMILLAN: So there's that excitement paired with the realization of, my life is in God's hands. And it really could be taken at any point, especially with the work that I'm going into. If I'm facing those kinds of airstrips, that's something that you got to keep before the Lord. Today could be my day, tomorrow could be my day, doing dangerous work. But it's so worth it to provide a means of spreading the Gospel.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Theresa Haynes in Arlington, Washington.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, August 21st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. WORLD Commentator Janie B. Cheaney now on the word of the week, this week, in Chicago.

JANIE B. CHEANEY: You remember the Vacation Bible School song about having “Joy joy joy joy down in my heart?” The early days of the Kamala Harris campaign is like VBS on steroids, with media coverage punching the Joy button every chance it gets. Excitement over a new candidate is to be expected, especially after ditching a problematic old candidate, but this is the happy-clappiest campaign I can recall. The Associated Press picked up on it right away. Typical headline: “On the campaign trial, Harris is pushing joy while Trump paints a darker picture.” In his rollout speech as running mate, Tim Walz began his remarks with a shoutout to the top of the ticket: “Thank you for bringing back the joy.”

As a campaign strategy it just might work, but Joy as a catchphrase, like Barack Obama’s “Hope and Change,” won’t stand up in the rough arena of presidential politics if Harris actually becomes president. It’s a prop for getting elected, not a mandate for running a country. Joy is personal, not political. The Bible includes over 300 references to it, often in unjoyful contexts.

In Nehemiah 8, the Jewish exiles recently returned from Babylon are weeping as they hear the law read aloud—probably because they realize how far they’ve fallen from it. Nehemiah reassures them: “Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Jesus echoes that reassurance to his disciples at the last supper, after he told them he was going away: “you have sorrow now . . . but your hearts will rejoice.” In Acts 5, the same disciples rejoiced because they were counted worthy to suffer for his name. Paul echoes that sentiment in Colossians 1:21: “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.” His letter to the Philippians is full of joy and rejoicing—14 references—not the kind of prose one usually writes from prison. Peter, also, reminds his readers that even though they are going through various trials, they are filled with “joy inexpressible” in their soul’s salvation.

Christ told his disciples the same thing he tells us: “No one will take your joy from you.” No one: no persecutor, no betrayer, no slanderer.

And no devastating election results, either. All these things are temporal and of the earth. Biblical joy is everlasting and heavenly. The Greek word most often translated as “joy” in the New Testament is Chara. This should have a familiar ring. It’s related to Charis, the word most often translated as “grace.” Like grace, joy comes from above.

The joy of the Lord was the strength of the Old-Testament Jews and the New-Testament Christians, and it’s our strength too. The ginned-up joy of this election cycle may be burning out already, but ours will burn forever.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: New school year, same challenges to getting student aid as last year. We’ll talk about it with an expert. And, a family committed to honoring D-Day veterans. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

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, “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” —Psalm 46:10, 11

Go now in grace and peace.

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