The World and Everything in It: August 24, 2026

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JENNY ROUGH, HOST: Good morning!

Today on Legal Docket: Eight firefighters seek Supreme Court review of a COVID-era religious-accommodation case.

LAUREN: We’re a single-income family, it meant losing all of our insurance … and all of our income.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Five years later, the legal fight may just be getting started.

Also today, the Monday Moneybeat: the national debt hits $40 trillion dollars. David Bahnsen standing by.

Later, the WORLD History Book, it was preserved for nearly 2,000 years...

TUCK: It's a wonderful tapestry of an ancient city that we had no idea really beforehand.

...what Pompeii revealed about life in Rome.

ROUGH: It’s Monday, August 24th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Jenny Rough.

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

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Canada tariffs » Wine, furniture, and hockey sticks are among the Canadian goods now facing a 50% U.S. tariff.

The duties took effect Saturday, on $20 billion in exports. Trump had said midweek the two sides had a deal to avoid the tariffs.

Canada walked away Friday, saying U.S. negotiators wanted limits on its trade with other countries, while American officials say Canada made new demands.

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso:

BARRASSO: It'd be wise for them to come back to the table, have the discussions, and make sure that we move forward 'cause we need to continue trade with Canada.

Roughly three-quarters of Canada's exports go to the U.S.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicts talks will resume in short order.

DUFFY: I think you're gonna see Mark, uh, Carney come to the table very, very quickly because it's gonna be devastating for his country.

Canada strikes back September 8th, on American steel, dairy and farm equipment. Senator Susan Collins of Maine says the tariffs will raise costs for families back home.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney insists that his administration did all it could, and that there isn't much to talk about right now.

CARNEY: We pursued every opportunity to reach an agreement that protects Canadian workers and their families, that strengthens our economy, and that respects Canadian sovereignty.

Carney added that his government had been under no illusions and —quote— "recognized from the start that America has changed."

CARNEY: We can't control the storm that blows in from Washington. We can, however, chart a new course by building Canada strong at home and diversifying our trading relationships abroad.

U.S. trade officials say more measures could follow.

Iran » Sen. John Barrasso also weighed in on Washington turning up the economic pressure against Iran.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is set to spell out a new round of sanctions today meant to force Iran to give up its nuclear program.

They would hit any bank or company anywhere still trading with Iran. The Navy is already blockading Iranian ports, while Iran has choked off the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf's oil route.

BARRASSO: The suffering that's going on in Iran right now, the maximum sanctions being applied are the things that are gonna make Iran finally say, You're right. We were wrong. No nuclear weapon. Straits open.

But Tehran says it won't submit. Iran's security council chief says the Strait stays closed until the U.S. changes course.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi calls the sanctions “bound to fail.”

A standoff continues after U.S.-Iran nuclear talks collapsed weeks ago.

Tropical Storm Moke » More rain is falling on Hawaii's Big Island a week after Hurricane Lala tore up the island's roads and hillsides.

Tropical Storm Moke is passing well south of the islands. A flood watch runs through this afternoon.

Hawaii Governor Josh Green warned over the weekend:

GREEN: It will drop five to ten inches of rain, most likely on the Big Island, which is impactful because we just had so much rain from Hurricane Lala there.

Lala killed multiple people and dropped more than 40 inches of rain. Thousands still have no power, some until September 8th.

Green has asked the White House for a federal emergency declaration:

GREEN: We know there's already at least forty-three million dollars of damage to infrastructure on the Big Island, another four point six million dollars to homes at the very least. There's gonna be a lot more to account for, and we will be there to provide recovery and resources, but it's gonna take some time.

Forecasters expect drier weather to return tomorrow.

Texas moratorium on new datacenters » Hundreds of data center projects in Texas are frozen in place, blocked from plugging into the power grid.

Governor Greg Abbott ordered the freeze three weeks ago, after complaints from residents about rising electric bills and water use.

ABBOTT: They had not been working in collaboration with the state. They'd not been working in collaboration with local governments. And so they basically dug their own grave for the problem that's been caused for them, and that's why they got the backlash they deserve.

He told ABC’s This Week that fewer than one in ten companies told the state how much power they'll need.

Since the freeze, Meta, Google, OpenAI and Amazon have pledged to cover their own power and water costs.

President Trump called the freeze a mistake, saying data centers could be bigger than oil.

State regulators say an audit of the industry's power and water use could take several months. And the freeze holds until then.

Freedom 250 Grand Prix » A historic moment in Washington Sunday. For the first time ever, Indy cars raced through the streets of the nation's capital:

AUDIO: They will see the green flag waved by President Trump. Ready for green. We have green. We are racing in the Freedom 250. Alex Palou with a great start!

It was part of the ongoing celebration of America's 250th birthday.

Drivers raced 147 laps around the National Mall past the Capitol and the Air and Space Museum. Cars topped 190 miles an hour, flying past permanent road signs that read “speed limit 25.”

Organizers expected a crowd near 140,000, most with free tickets handed out by lottery.

Before the start, President Trump circled the course in the presidential limousine, as Air Force One and four fighter jets passed overhead.

I'm Kent Covington.

Coming up: David Bahnsen is here for the Monday Moneybeat. Plus, the WORLD History Book: the archaeological discoveries found at Pompeii.

This is The World and Everything in It.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: It’s Monday the 24th of August.

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

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

Time now for Legal Docket.

COVID-19 may sound like old news, but for eight firefighters in Snohomish County, Washington, it’s not. The eight were placed on leave after seeking religious accommodations from a vaccine mandate, and that eventually became unpaid leave. It took about seven months, but the department did allow them to return to work. But that is hardly the end of the matter.

ROUGH: When individuals take a high-profile case like this one to the Supreme Court, the effects extend beyond the named parties. Their families feel the effects, too.

Today we’re telling the story from the perspective of Lauren Peterson. She’s married to David Petersen, the named plaintiff in Petersen versus Snohomish Regional Fire and Rescue. The firefighters’ petition for writ for certiorari—meaning, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case—that’s pending.

EICHER: We’re presenting only Lauren and David Petersen’s side. If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, we’ll give it our normal treatment—covering both sides of the case—when the court hears oral argument.

ROUGH: I talked with Lauren about what she remembered five years ago, in August 20-21, when Washington State’s vaccine mandate for healthcare providers first came down.

LAUREN PETERSEN: For me, personally, I sat and prayed on it for a very long time.

She and her husband both did.

She says David decided to become a firefighter at age 10, after performing CPR on his grandfather and saving his life. He became a Snohomish firefighter about a decade and a half ago—and is nearing 20 years on the job.

His objection to the vaccine was on religious grounds, pointing to the fact that faith guides him through life. Other firefighters pointed to evidence that the vaccines are connected to abortion-derived fetal cell lines.

EICHER: Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, an employer must reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious observance or practice unless the employer can show that doing so would impose an undue hardship on its business.

Which raises the question: What constitutes an undue hardship?

MAST: For guidance, the firefighters point to a Supreme Court case: Groff vs. DeJoy. Here’s one of Petersen’s attorneys, Cliff Martin.

CLIFF MARTIN: The Groff case was just a few years ago.

In Groff in 2023, a postal service employee sought a religious accommodation from Sunday work. The postal service argued that exempting the worker fully would impose an undue hardship. The Supreme Court used the case to clarify the definition. In other words, what an employer is required to prove.

EICHER: Here’s Justice Samuel Alito announcing the court’s opinion from the bench.

JUSTICE SAMUEL ALITO: In this case, the Third Circuit found that the United States Postal Service had no duty to accommodate a postal worker who abstained from work on Sunday for religious reasons. Its ruling relied on the premise that anything more than a de minimis cost qualifies as undue hardship. For reasons explained further in our opinion, we hold, excuse me, that this low standard misreads Title VII and our precedent and that an employer must accommodate its employees’ religious practices unless accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of an employer’s particular business.

That’s the key phrase. An employer has to show that granting an accommodation would impose those costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business. Snohomish Regional Fire and Rescue said keeping its unvaccinated firefighters on duty—that alone—that was an undue hardship. The firefighters countered that neighboring departments had accommodated religious objections with measures such as masking, testing, and social distancing.

ROUGH: Nevertheless, in October 2021, the department placed the eight firefighters on leave. After they’d exhausted their paid leave, the leave was unpaid. The consequences to the Petersen family were devastating.

PETERSEN: Because we’re a single income family. It meant losing all our insurance. It meant losing all of our coverage for our son’s medications for special needs and all of our income.

David and his colleagues filed a religious discrimination lawsuit in federal district court. But the court tossed the case on summary judgment—dismissing it before it went to trial. The firefighters wanted to appeal, but—

PETERSEN: When we lost, we had no attorney. They didn’t want our case. They rejected it. You’re going to lose.

EICHER: But an attorney from Los Angeles named Jennifer Kennedy didn’t think so. She had not only been following the lawsuit, she’d been following Lauren on Instagram. After the case from Snohomish caught her eye, she agreed to handle the firefighters’ appeal.

During oral argument before a 3-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit, Kennedy pointed to Groff versus DeJoy.

JENNIFER KENNEDY: The district court failed to apply the clarified standard for undue hardship in Groff versus DeJoy which requires a showing of actual significant costs to business operations.

ROUGH: She said the lower court misapplied the Groff test because it never required the fire department to prove an actual increased burden or cost. The fire department relied on its belief it might suffer substantially increased costs. But in September of 2025, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s dismissal.

EICHER: By this point, the case had created a buzz. A press conference in Seattle generated quite a bit of feedback. That’s when Lauren Petersen realized the case stood for a principle much more important than just her husband’s conscience. In her view: no government employee should have to violate sincerely held religious beliefs just to keep a job.

PETERSEN: I told David, I said, … there is something bigger going on right now. … We need to make sure people understand this isn’t one person. This is a group of men and what they stand for.

ROUGH: As Lauren and Kennedy talked more, they came up with a moniker for the plaintiffs: the Snohomish 8.

The nickname stuck. Soon, Lauren had a logo and tagline too:

PETERSEN: I came home and I sat and I was praying and I have a whiteboard to this day. I’m looking at it right now.

She sketched crossed axes over a flag and wrote the phrase “divinely led, divinely protected.”

PETERSEN: So the divinely led is everything that had to come to be, that God has led us through every single phase, every single person, the decision that the group has made … to move forward in spite of all external voices saying to quit. Give up, give up.

For Lauren, “divinely protected” means that health-freedom and religious-freedom cases can protect people far beyond a single plaintiff … or even eight.

PETERSEN: All protections for all Americans in this country.

Lauren created bags, t-shirts, and hoodies with the logo and listed them on a fundraising page. She says it’s humbling to see the community show their support by wearing them.

PETERSEN: We’re not LA Fire. We’re not New York. We’re just this moderate sized department out in farmland.

But she also says being the spouse of the lead plaintiff in a potential Supreme Court case has been difficult for the whole family. The worst part: the public scrutiny and negative comments from opponents.

PETERSEN: When we would go to marches or at the Olympia Capitol in Washington State to fight for our rights and … being told we were going to kill other individuals and family, friends, and society.

EICHER: Still, they press on. In April, the Snohomish 8 filed its Supreme Court petition. The fire department filed no response. First Liberty lawyer Martin says it’s pretty common for the other side to ignore a cert petition or choose not to reply.

But by the summer, the Supreme Court asked the department to respond, which it did on August 3rd.

MARTIN: So it’s a good sign that the Supreme Court wanted a response from them …  that they are, you know, at least somewhat interested in the cert petition.

The Snohomish 8 replied a week ago. Martin is encouraged by the number of friend-of-the-court briefs that others have filed because they have a strong interest in the issue.

ROUGH: One of those briefs is by Gerald Groff himself, the postal worker who sought Sundays off so he could observe the Sabbath.

MARTIN: There were so many other organizations that were interested in this case and felt that the Ninth Circuit got the wrong outcome. We’re hopeful that all of that will draw the attention of the Supreme Court. … It’s good to see a showing of support and to see, frankly, how popular religious liberty is in America.

Stories like Lauren’s that circulate in the court of public opinion … even amicus briefs … do not themselves determine whether the Supreme Court grants review. But the Snohomish 8 point to a factor that can improve the likelihood:

MARTIN: Something we do have here is a circuit split. And that’s where different circuits are analyzing the same question a different way. And so we think the fact that a split is developing between three circuits and three other circuits is a pretty good sign that the Supreme Court is going to want to take this up.

EICHER: The split lines up this way: Three circuits say an employer can show undue hardship under Groff through a reasonable belief it will experience substantial increased costs. Three other circuits say the employer has to prove there is an actual substantial increased cost.

Even so, this case is a long shot. The Supreme Court accepts about 1 percent of the approximately 7,000 cert petitions it receives each term.

Still, other cases bubbling in the lower courts are riding on what happens here … and Lauren feels the weight of that.

PETERSEN: I get text messages every single day from Seattle Fire, police officers, city workers, asking is there an update? Is there an update? … We’re coming to DC! We’re processing right now and sitting and praying. … We do honestly feel a lot of pressure.

ROUGH: After COVID conditions eased, the department allowed four of the Snohomish 8 to return to duty in June of 2022. That was under safety guidelines for unvaccinated employees. Others returned later. But none of that resolved back pay they contend they’re owed, accrued vacation time, and other benefits lost while on leave. And for them, the case is also about protecting other workers and their families from facing the same choice they have.

That’s this week’s Legal Docket.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Time now to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bahnsen.

David heads up the wealth management firm, the Bahnsen Group, and he’s here now. Good morning, David.

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

EICHER: Well, David, we have talked a little bit on this program about the bond markets and how they work. This can be very complicated.

But I wonder whether you saw an article in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend titled “The Wild Week When Scott Bessent Was Schooled by the Bond Market.”

The piece says the Treasury Department stepped in to try to calm investors after bond sales pushed yields higher.

The move, according to the paper, did help briefly. But then yields moved back up—and this is apparently was the education of Scott Bessent.

When we see a story like that, what are we actually looking at?

BAHNSEN: Well, there are a few different things because I think you have to pull back a little bit and look at the big picture, not necessarily what the story is trying to say, but what is actually happening in the bond market and what is happening with the Treasury Department’s actions and for what reason.

It’s very important to remember that he is trying, by his own stated admission, to intervene and manipulate the long end of the yield curve—in this case, the 30-year borrowing rate—because he believes that markets are doing it wrong, and that governmental intervention will try to get it more right.

Now he said that’s what he’s intending to do.

Remember, we have $32.5 trillion of Treasury debt outstanding. The difference between the 32 and a half trillion and the 40 trillion of total national debt is that seven and a half trillion is not actually owned by the public. It’s intragovernmental debt.

So the debt we have is 32 and a half trillion that we have to pay to others, and it’s about 4% or 5% of it that is in 30-year maturities. It’s a very small amount, and he said we’re going to go from 2 billion of us buying back our own 30-year debt up to 4 billion. You’re talking about tip money. It is out of 32 and a half trillion. It is a very tiny amount of money.

Why did he say it? Why are they doing it? Well, remember we’ve talked about how Chairman Warsh at the Fed has said he doesn’t believe in using forward guidance, trying to tell markets what you’re going to do in the future as a way of impacting policy now.

What Secretary Bessent is doing is saying, “I want to try to use forward guidance to see if it can impact markets.”

Now, you remember Secretary Bessent, before he was Treasury Secretary, was very critical of former Secretary Janet Yellen that she didn’t buy more 30-year debt when interest rates were very low and we could have locked it and not had all the risk with short maturities of higher interest rates; we could have secured a lower cost of debt.

But the Fed can make money. The Fed can buy bonds with money that doesn’t exist. Treasury can’t. So what all he’s doing is talking about issuing more short-term debt to pay off some of the long-term debt. So all of it to me is very ill-advised.

The article you bring up is trying to make the point that the bond market isn’t even falling for it. Yields fell one day and then went back up the next two days, but ultimately, I think that he wants to see the long end come down, and he’s throwing things out there to see what kind of response he could get.

That’s really the most logical conclusion because he’s a very smart capital markets guy, and he has to know that no bureaucrat can actually impact the price of money. Markets are going to win out in the end.

EICHER: Even a bureaucrat as smart as Scott Bessent.

So you mentioned the $40 trillion in debt, and of course that was a big news story this week. It’s a round number. It’s a new number, and that’s the kind of catnip for journalists. We’re drawn to that kind of stuff.

It’s a milestone. It’s an opportunity to stop and take stock, and I would say, “Behold, $40 trillion.”

What’s the most important thing for the WORLD listener to understand about the number?

BAHNSEN: Well, 39 point 9 trillion and 40 trillion are the same thing, and so I understand that a round number gathers attention. We knew we were running 1.8 trillion dollar deficits, best case.

We didn’t know it was going to end up being over 2 trillion for this year, which it looks like it’s going to be. But they’re basically the same number.

So when the debt was 37 trillion, and we knew we were running 2 trillion of deficits, we knew it was a year, a year and a half, until we hit 40. So none of it is new.

EICHER: So here we are.

BAHNSEN: Yeah, yeah, it’s just math. And by the way, we know we’re going to hit 50 trillion in five, six years, depending on the exact level of deficits.

I think that at some point, I would love to believe there’s somebody who wants to go deal with that. But that’s not what’s impacting the bond market now.

It isn’t like the bond market said, “Oh my goodness, we have 40 trillion of debt,” and didn’t know it, and that the bond market’s punishment for having 40 trillion of debt is a 5.2% 30-year rate. If we were worried about some imminent default, I assure you, things would be much worse than this.

What’s causing yields to go higher on the long end, Nick, is that there’s a massive number of companies issuing debt now competing for that debt issuance. So it’s pushing prices down and yields up, and all of a sudden you have Oracle and Google and Nvidia and companies like this that are high-grade companies issuing debt, and there’s more competition, and then that part of the bond market is very illiquid.

T-bills—short-term government borrowings—are the most liquid instrument on earth. The long end is less liquid, and so it’s more susceptible to price volatility. That’s what’s happened.

Why doesn’t Secretary Bessent like it? Because it impacts mortgage rates, and mortgage rates impact the economy. That’s the reason.

EICHER: And that affects the midterms.

Now on Friday, you had telegraphed this a couple of weeks ago—a big speech coming up by Kevin Warsh, the Fed chairman in Jackson Hole, Wyoming—something that you’re going to really be paying close attention to. Not that you don’t pay close attention to what the Fed chairman says, but this is an especially big one.

So, what do you expect to hear? What should we be looking for?

BAHNSEN: Well, I think that it’s entirely possible that the Jackson Hole speech ends up being much ado about nothing, but I don’t think that will happen.

I think it is more likely that Kevin Warsh, the chairman of the Fed, is going to use the speech to put some gauntlet down, either by saying yes, indeed, we will be raising rates to just let the market hear it, or to say no, we are not going to.

And I don’t mean to say it word for word, but I mean message it one way or the other and make the case that they believe the trajectory of inflation is headed down eventually, that they believe most of the things that have pushed prices higher are supply shocks, such as tariffs, such as the Iran War, et cetera, and therefore outside the purview of monetary instrumentation.

One way or the other, I think you’re going to hear what Warsh really believes. But I think that we may very well hear a message from Warsh that is not necessarily consistent with what the Fed ends up doing in the months ahead because I do think it’s possible that he simply doesn’t have a majority of the committee, and we’ve never seen that before.

I’m going to have to hear the speech myself to read between the tea leaves. But right now I can’t recall a Jackson Hole speech where there are this many possible outcomes that could come out of it.

EICHER: All right. Well, we’ll slice and dice a week from now.

David Bahnsen, founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of the Bahnsen Group. David, thank you so much. We’ll talk to you after the big speech.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

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

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: And I’m Jenny Rough. Up next: the WORLD History Book.

When Mount Vesuvius erupted nearly two thousand years ago, it buried two of the era’s thriving Roman cities in ash. Workers unearthed the ruins by accident, and researchers have been learning from the discovery ever since.

WORLD’s Emma Eicher has the story.

EMMA EICHER: Sometime in late 79 A.D., the ground shook beneath the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Flakes of ash began to fall from the sky as panic spread.

STEVEN TUCK: There were earthquakes and volcanic fumes, vapors were coming out of the ground …

Steven Tuck is a professor of history at Miami University in Ohio. And he’s studied Pompeii for 25 years. Tuck says, Romans didn’t even have a Latin word for volcano.

All they saw that day was a mountain exploding above them:

TUCK: This volcano at the time was about 6,000 feet tall. The top 3,000 feet were suddenly pulverized into ash and dust and small rocks, and that was all thrown up into the air, about 20 miles into the air.

Historians debate the exact date of the eruption. But at the time, Pompeii and Herculaneum were located at the base of Mount Vesuvius in Italy. Pompeii was an agricultural hub with a river port and a population of about 30,000.

Neighboring Herculaneum was a much smaller seaside resort. When Mount Vesuvius erupted, citizens grabbed their families, their belongings, and ran:

TUCK: People turned to the transportation they had: carts, wagons, horses, mules, and ships, and they fled.

Over eighteen hours, the falling ash and pumice piled about 20 feet high in Pompeii—burying most buildings. More than three times as much covered Herculaneum.

TUCK: I mean, people are running around on top of this loose ash and pumice trying to escape. It's got to have been incredibly difficult. I mean, it's getting dark. Visibility is almost zero. It's hard to move.

Then came pyroclastic surges: white hot gas, rocks and even more ash traveled down the mountain:

TUCK: They're about 900 degrees in temperature, they move about 60 miles an hour, and they came down in waves and just covered the city, and they sealed in Pompeii.

While most people made it out in time, some stayed behind. When researchers began excavating Pompeii, they found more than 1,000 bodies in the ash. They poured plaster casts to recreate and preserve the forms.

They believed these people couldn’t escape: the elderly, disabled, or slaves who had been ordered to remain.

But further investigation challenged that assumption:

TUCK: It's young and old, rich and poor. And what's interesting is that they don't seem to have stayed because they couldn't have gotten out.

So researchers developed a new theory: that these people had died while still trying to gather their families.

TUCK: They seem to have stayed because they chose to stay, perhaps too long. In other words, what happens in disasters is people don't just look at the volcanic eruption, turn around and run. And all of those people that were found, almost none of them were alone.

Many of the bodies were found in buildings, on roadways, or by the city gates.

TUCK: Most of them were killed in that second phase of the eruption when the pyroclastic surges came down because among those surges, with the superheated, you know, steam and rock and everything, were volcanic gases. And volcanic gases are heavier than air.

Those who escaped fled to nearby cities. Tuck personally traced 20,000 refugees:

TUCK: Almost all the survivors that I have traced are on the north half of the Bay of Naples, just outside of the destruction zone, and most of them are within 25 miles of the cities they started at.

The ash and extreme heat preserved the two cities, and they were frozen in time until the mid-18th century. Herculaneum was the first to be discovered, but proved much harder to excavate. It had endured more of the pyroclastic surges, and rocks buried the city.

By contrast, Pompeii was relatively spared—ash proved to be the only obstacle to uncovering its secrets.

At first, archaeologists looked for valuable artifacts.

TUCK: They wanted wall paintings and sculpture and bronzes and and things that were going to be intrinsically valuable and beautiful.

While they did find statues and gold, they also discovered everyday items: olive oil and bread, and old scrolls belonging to the lost libraries of the ancient world.

TUCK: It's a wonderful tapestry of an ancient city that we had no idea really beforehand. In the literary record, we have a lot of rich guys writing to other rich guys, whereas here, we can engage with the desperately poor and the people that are trying to make their way, build their lives, get married, have families, things like that.

Researchers eventually realized they had found something truly priceless: information about how an ancient civilization really lived.

Today you can visit both Herculaneum and Pompeii, and even find old graffiti still on the walls:

TUCK: Some of these people were clearly literate, and they left behind writing on the walls.

So both cities—and their people—have stayed a snapshot in time, two thousand years later.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Emma Eicher.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: Tomorrow: License plate readers can help police solve crimes. But reports of misuse are fueling a growing privacy backlash. We’ll have a report. 

And, a cattle rancher explains what he’s doing to protect his herd from a dangerous parasite that could threaten the supply of beef. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Jenny Rough.

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

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 will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds.
For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.
If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.” —Psalm 50:9–12

Go now in grace and peace.

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