The World and Everything in It: February 22, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. Hi, my name’s Maria, and I am a college student living in the Sunshine State of Florida where I am majoring in Christian thought at a small Bible college. I want to do a big shout out to my mom and dad who live out of state. I love you both very much, and I can’t wait to see you soon and I hope you enjoy today's program.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning! Elections security and artificial intelligence, compatible or not?

AUDIO: Just because you saw it online doesn't make it true. But also just because you saw it within a video or just because you have a photo of it doesn't actually make it true.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Also, life for Christians in Ukraine two years after Russia’s invasion.

And more and more minors are getting arrested for carjacking. When things turn deadly, should they be tried as adults?

AUDIO: They get away with it so long you get you become more emboldened. And then all of a sudden, then you're killing.

And a book that asks Jewish Americans to rethink their loyalty to Democrats.

BROWN: It’s Thursday, February 22nd. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

BROWN: Now the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Zelenskyy / Ukraine aid » Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is renewing his appeal for more military aid from the West.

ZELENSKYY: We have to be more quick. That means to lose all the bureaucracy [that] we have. Otherwise, we will not have any chance.

Zelenskyy there in an interview set to air this evening on Fox News.

Ukrainian troops on the front lines have had to start rationing ammunition, and outgunned soldiers were forced to retreat last week from the eastern city of Advika, which Moscow now controls.

At the Pentagon, spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said if we don’t supply Ukraine with the arms it needs to hold off Russian invaders …

SINGH: We know that Putin will expand this war beyond Ukraine and potentially go into a NATO territory. And then by Article 5, we will be bound to also enter into a wider regional war.

A group of House lawmakers last week drew up a counter-proposal to a recent Senate bill, which would also fund military aid to Ukraine.

Some Republicans oppose any more Ukraine funding altogether, but most holdouts say they want effective U.S. border measures tied to any additional aid.

GANTZ : [Speaking Hebrew]

Israel hostage talks » Israel is now expressing guarded optimism about a potential new cease-fire arrangement with Hamas to secure the release of more hostages.

GANTZ: [Speaking Hebrew]

War cabinet minister Benny Gantz said, "There are signs that indicate the possibility of moving forward” on a new cease-fire deal. He added, “We won’t miss any opportunity to bring our girls and boys home."

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller says America’s priority is a lasting peace: 

MILLER: The first step in that is getting an agreement to get the hostages out while we work on this longer term plan for the region.

U.S. at international court » Meantime, it’s day-4 of testimony at the United Nations World Court discussing Israel’s decades-long presence on disputed land, which Palestinians claim is theirs.

State Department legal adviser Richard Visek told a 15-judge panel Wednesday:

Visek: Hamas' attacks, hostage-taking and other atrocities…reinforce the United States' resolve to urgently achieve a final peace that includes the full realization of Palestinian self-determination.

He argued that the only way to achieve a lasting peace is for both sides to negotiate and agree to a solution rather than force Israel out of disputed lands.

Testimony will continue through Monday with a ruling expected later this year.

Biden student loans » President Biden is campaigning on student loan relief, announcing the cancellation of student debt for about 150,000 borrowers.

BIDEN: If you qualify, you’ll be hearing from me shortly.

Biden heard there in suburban Los Angeles on Wednesday. The announcement comes after the Supreme Court last year struck down his initial plan to unilaterally cancel billions of dollars in debt.

BIDEN: The Supreme Court blocked it, but that didn’t stop me. I announced we were going to pursue alternative paths.

He said qualified borrowers enrolled in the SAVE student loan repayment plan will have thousands of dollars in debt canceled at a total price tag of more than a billion dollars.

Republicans criticized the move calling it an effort to buy votes with taxpayer money. And they say it forces taxpayers who do not have a college degree to help foot the bill for those who do.

Boeing » Boeing has ousted the leader of its 737 Max program amid ongoing quality issues. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Ed Clark is out the door in the executive shakeup. Clark had led the program for the past three years.

The blowout of a panel on an Alaska Airlines Max 9 jet last month has led to more scrutiny of Boeing.

FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said Boeing is not paying enough attention to safety as it tries to build fast enough to keep up with demand.

Replacing Clark will be Katie Ringel, the current vice president of 737 delivery operations.

Boeing also said it was creating a new position overseeing quality control.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

James Biden questioned » President Biden’s brother, James Biden, says the president has stayed out of family business dealings. He testified behind closed doors as the GOP led impeachment inquiry against the president moves forward in the House.

Republican Congressman Jim Jordan said committee members wanted to question the younger Biden on whether any of the president’s family members took money from a Chinese energy company.

JORDAN: Specifically relative to Jim Biden’s involvement – James Biden’s involvement – with CEFC.

James Biden said checks he wrote to his brother were to repay legitimate personal loans.

Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin says the inquiry is going nowhere.

RASKIN: It feels to me as if everyone knows the impeachment investigation is over.

Last week Alexander Smirnoff, the FBI informant who claimed the Biden family was involved in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme, was charged with fabricating the story.

President Biden’s son Hunter is set to testify next week.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Separating truth from lies in videos online. Plus, holding carjackers accountable.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 22nd of February, 2024. Thank you for listening to WORLD Radio. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

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

First up on The World and Everything in It. Discerning the deepfakes.

Deepfake technology is artificial intelligence that digitally alters someone’s appearance, voice, or background to make them appear to be doing or saying something they didn’t.

It used to be easy to spot fake videos of public figures, but new data shows that so-called “deepfakes” have gotten better at fooling people.

REICHARD: A recent campaign in New Hampshire raises questions about how AI-generated content might influence voters in an election year.

So how can Christians meet this new tech with discernment?

Here’s WORLD Radio’s Mary Muncy.

MARY MUNCY: Before the New Hampshire primary in January, some registered Democratic voters received a call from President Joe Biden, supposedly.

Sound from Boston 25 News.

ROBO CALL/BIDEN: It’s important that you save your vote for the November election. We’ll need your help in electing Democrats up and down the ticket. Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again.

The New Hampshire Department of Justice traced the source of possibly tens of thousands of these calls to two Texas-based telecommunications companies and an individual. They supposedly used artificial intelligence to generate a recording that sounds like President Biden. The state filed cease-and-desist orders saying the calls were attempts to suppress voters.

It’s unclear whether the calls affected voter turnout, since more voters came to the polls than the state expected.

But this isn’t the only incident.

THE TELEGRAPH: [ZELENSKYY SURRENDERING]

Last year, a deepfake of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy surrendering to Russia came out while the countries were in peace talks, and a video of Elon Musk supposedly confessing to using drugs went viral

AI SENTINAL, ELON MUSK: I just dropped like 150 milligram edible.

Then a few weeks ago, a Hong Kong finance worker was tricked out of millions by fraudsters using deepfake technology.

It’s been used to create everything from filters on social media, to fake videos of election candidates, to pornography using a real person’s likeness.

The tools are ubiquitous, and that makes it hard to regulate.

Earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission made AI-generated voices in robo-calls illegal. And several states have passed or are considering laws requiring labels for AI-generated videos.

Tech and social media companies are also trying to come up with their own internal regulations.

Two weeks ago, Facebook and Instagram owner Meta said it would promote standards across the social media industry for identifying and labeling deepfakes. Those standards include marking any AI-generated content with an embedded watermark or marker.

But that’s currently only possible for Meta if the AI-generated content is created on its platform.

Meta President Nick Clegg told PBS News Hour:

NICK CLEGG: The technology doesn’t yet exist across the industry to apply the same kind of common standards on audio or video content.

So as the U.S. general election gets closer, voters can expect to see at least a few deepfakes of their favorite candidate. But if technology and regulation can’t weed out fakes, will voters be able to catch them themselves?

MARKUS APPEL: We presented deepfakes and around 50 percent took notice of it and reported it.

Markus Appel is professor of the Psychology of Communication at the University of Wurzburg. He did a study on how well people can identify deepfakes.

MARKUS APPEL: We showed deep fake videos, and then we ask people, “What went through your mind when you watch these videos? ” And we were thinking that when people identify a fake video, they will like, notice it right away and also let us know about it.

But many didn’t.

The way the researchers asked the questions is important. “What did you think about these videos” not “was that a deepfake?”

It’s closer to the way people process media in their everyday lives. Generally, no one is asking a person scrolling through Instagram whether the video they just liked and shared was a deepfake. The person scrolling has to ask that question themselves.

APPEL: So the results were that people who are inclined to process information more thoroughly, like as a kind of general tendency, they were better at identifying a deepfake video to be a deepfake video.

That means someone could improve his or her chances of spotting a deepfake by creating habits of verification and discernment.

Some things to look for in potential deepfakes include unnatural human movement, lighting that doesn’t match the setting, and background noise that doesn’t match the background. Some apps and sites can even identify them for you. But as deepfakes improve even subtle imperfections could be resolved.

Jason Thacker is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at Boyce College.

THACKER: We're kind of entering into a phase where just because you saw it online doesn't make it true. But also just because you saw it within a video or just because you heard it, or just because you have a photo of it doesn't actually make it true.

Not only that, but bad actors can also cast doubt on things that really happened.

THACKER: You have the ability to almost deny reality in that sense. And to use that for political gain.

Thacker says it’s essentially propaganda. And while the concept is not new, it is new for amateurs to be able to create convincing propaganda.

He says regulation is needed, but using AI to control or fix AI is an imperfect solution. Instead, slowing down and using discernment is how Christians can wisely navigate a digital age.

THACKER: We all really have to be part of this together. And that sense of pursuing wisdom together as we navigate a lot of this kind of post truth age that we live in.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Russia and religion.

It was two years ago this Saturday that Russia invaded Ukraine.

For the people of Ukraine, the cost of the war is in human lives and material, but there’s also the spiritual cost. Russia has destroyed hundreds of religious buildings, including nearly 200 Ukrainian Orthodox churches. That’s according to last year’s report from Mission Eurasia, the church mobilization group.

What is the role of Christian churches in this war?

Joining us now to talk about it is Sergey Rakhuba. He’s originally from Ukraine and is the President of Mission Eurasia.

Sergey, it’s good to have you back on the program.

SERGEY RAKHUBA: It's a pleasure to be on your show, guys, you know, so thank you.

REICHARD: First, let’s get some background. Russia’s official religion is Russian Orthodoxy, part of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Russia claims to be reuniting Ukraine with its religious roots. What is Ukraine’s relationship with the Orthodox church?

RAKHUBA: You know, there is actually two Orthodox churches, two branches: Orthodox Church of Ukraine that broke away from the Russian Orthodox Church when the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine wanted to be independent. And they wanted to have independent church and be a part of the Orthodox family community in the world. They wanted to report to Constantinople, where the main offices and where the universal Patriarch, Bartholomew, is. So Russia, of course, did not want to accept it. So they believe that the Ukrainian Church of Moscow Patriarchate, that's the only right entity for Ukraine. When they invaded and took over all those eastern Ukrainian regions, of course, they bring their ideology ideology of the Russian world if you've heard this definition. So that's where they only recognize a Russian Orthodox Christianity. So other Orthodox Churches of Ukraine, Catholics, Protestants, evangelicals, any kind of faith except Muslims, by the way that they play games with, you know, so they are trying to oppress.

REICHARD: Tell us about religious liberty in Ukraine prior to Russia’s invasion.

RAKHUBA: I can tell you, you know, so being Ukrainian, and work in Ukraine, I lived in Russia for many years, you know, but also monitoring the issues of religious freedom in the countries of the former Soviet Union thoroughly, I can tell you, there is no more religious freedom than in Ukraine before Russia came. So when the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine was producing or sending more missionaries than any other country in Europe. Every single town in Siberia, Mary, there were Ukrainian missionaries sent by Ukraine, either Baptist, Pentecostal charismatic, you know, independent, you know, so they had that missional vision to go and transform Russia, Siberia, for Christ.

REICHARD: You mention that Russia oppresses people of faith who are not part of the Russian Orthodox church. What would happen if Russia were to take over Ukraine?

RAKHUBA: This is what terrifies everybody. Our director for religious freedom at Mission Eurasia, he was in the occupied territory, he is one of the pastor of one of the churches that was seized, he was detained, arrested, interrogated, you know, pressured, threatened to be killed and so on. So he stood against that and finally you know, so they just simply deported, kick him out, you know. So, and he says if Russia will take over Ukraine, this will happen everywhere. The first thing they will try to do is to suppress the church, the community of the faith community, that still have, you know, more open, you know, opinion about issues, you know, and those congregations and leaders of the congregation, they have a spiritual power, leadership power in our congregations and communities. And that's, that's what they will do, just simple, oppress, and try to eliminate any other faith community, or religious communities but orthodox in entire country.

REICHARD: Last question here. What signs of hope are you seeing?

RAKHUBA: So the hope is in the church that is rising in the midst of this crisis amid this war, from the ashes of destruction, economical, humanitarian, spiritually, you know, there are thousand and tens of thousands of volunteers that help people either who are oppressed refugees or displaced. And I where I'm so much involved in it, you know, so we have trained ourselves, you know, over 3,000 young Christian volunteers that work around the clock, helping people those who are in need because of this war. If Ukraine will win in this war, that we all hope, and the church will be involved in transforming, rebuilding, and reconstructing, you know, evangelizing that community. By the way, Mary, there is another fact. So there is a tremendous growth of the church in the time of war. I can give you stories, the church has doubled and tripled in numbers through all their, you know, outreach programs to so many needy people in the community, so community starts recognizing. And with a huge outpouring from all over the world, but specifically from the church in America, the Ukrainian church using that help, they are making a huge difference transforming the lives of people who are in need in such an unbelievable crisis of the war in Ukraine now.

REICHARD: Sergey Rakhuba is President of Mission Eurasia and is originally from Ukraine. Thank you so much. Appreciate your time!

RAKHUBA: Thank you. Thank you, Mary.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: In the wee hours Tuesday morning on an interstate highway in Philadelphia, a jarring sight. Someone called it in:

AUDIO: Woman: There’s a horse on 95 in northbound ramp and they’re requesting help to catch this horse. Dispatch: Catch a horse? Woman: That’s correct, sir.

Angelo Palmer was in a bus going the same direction as the horse:

ANGELO PALMER: The horse is going like 25 miles per hour because we slowed down to his speed. We all matched his speed because we were trying to protect the horse.

Heart-rending to think what could have happened, but the horse took an exit and police corralled it and offered some TLC.

Apparently someone left open a gate at a local riding club, and the horse took off.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: He wanted to show off some real horsepower!

PALMER: He made out ok. Good outcome.

MYRNA BROWN: It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, February 22nd. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: stealing cars. Carjackings are up this year. Often it’s juveniles committing these crimes. Sometimes these carjackings lead to violence.

BROWN: And a quick word to parents: some details in this story may not be suitable for younger listeners.

WORLD Senior Writer Kim Henderson brings us this report.

GRIFFIN: And this is the street that starts the car. This is where she gets out the building.

KIM HENDERSON: Jinnylynn Griffin is on a mission.

GRIFFIN: It's relatively a good neighborhood. And it happened at 1:30. It happened at this time in the afternoon.

Griffin’s mission is pretty straightforward: she wants justice for her sister, Linda Frickey. On March 21, 2020, carjackers stole Linda Frickey’s late model Nissan Kicks.

Carjackings had gotten so bad there in New Orleans that the two sisters had talked about it. Just a month earlier.

GRIFFIN: She came to our crawfish boil over at my house, like in February. And she was telling me about how carjackings were getting bad. And I said, “Linda, if they want to carjack you, what you're gonna do?” She said they could have the car. “I got insurance.”

Carjackings rarely turn fatal, but in Linda Frickey’s case, that’s exactly what happened. When 4 teens took her car, she was still in it. The main culprit maced her and kicked her, but she was stuck in the seatbelt and couldn’t get free.

Leanne Mascar witnessed the nightmarish scene.

MASCAR: I heard all this horrible screaming from that corner. And when I looked to the right, I thought it was a mannequin.

What she thought was a mannequin was actually Linda Frickey, who was hanging out the driver’s side door.

MASCAR: I could hear the sound of her body hitting the pavement, and she was facing me. And I could see her clothes and everything. It was horrible.

Next, the car swerved into a guy-wire, severing Frickey’s arm. That freed her from the car and her attackers, who sped away.

Mascar and others rushed to Frickey’s aid.

MASCAR: And I remember this woman coming across and as soon as she looked down, she just everybody, everybody just dropped into prayer. So much praying, everybody.

Frickey died that day, on that street. A security video captured the carjacking, leading to the swift arrest of three girls and one guy, the driver.

MASCAR: He had a rap sheet a mile long. I don't care how old he is. He was doing adult things. They get away with it so long, you become more emboldened. They get very bold. I mean, very bold, and then you're okay with that. And then all of a sudden, then you're killing.

The New Orleans district attorney campaigned on the promise he wouldn’t try juveniles as adults. That’s a big push these days. Gary LaFree, a criminology professor at the University of Maryland, understands why.

LAFREE: Well, I think there's a very natural concern that once you get someone embroiled in the criminal justice system, they’re sort of a lost cause, or at least much more difficult to pull them out.

LaFree says that beyond that individual, incarceration is costly for society, too.

LAFREE: It costs as much to keep people in prisons as it does to put them through Harvard, basically. So when you sign up to keep someone, essentially, in an institution the rest of their life, it's huge.

LaFree says the solution is keeping young people from committing crimes in the first place. But there’s a new problem. Some carjackings are orchestrated—even glamorized—on social media.

LAFREE: I think with young people, not only are people committing crimes sometimes, but also bragging about it online.

In Linda Frickey’s murder case, the New Orleans DA went back on his promise about juveniles. He charged Frickey’s assailants as adults. Here, DA Jason Williams talks to reporters after the trial of the main carjacker, John Honore, who’s now 18.

WILLIAMS: Every stomp, every kick, every punch, every macing, every yard of the two football fields he drove was a choice.

Jinnylynn Griffin feels like her quest for justice for her sister is complete now. But the process was challenging. Griffin estimates she’s been to various court dates at least 30 times.

GRIFFIN: My momma raised us all to be strong women. So crying is not something we do real easy, but yeah, it was pretty hard.

Another sister, Darline Barrza, says the healing can begin now, but they are painfully aware of what they lost.

BARRZA: Whenever we had a party, she would come in the door and kiss everybody on the cheek. Everybody. We almost had to line up. (kiss sounds) We miss her. I miss her.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in New Orleans, Louisiana.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, February 22nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Up next: WORLD commentator Cal Thomas on a new book that suggests Jewish Americans ought to rethink their loyalty to Democratic politicians.

CAL THOMAS: In the aftermath of anti-Israel protests on many college campuses and in the streets, a new book by Benjamin Ginsberg is perfectly timed. It’s titled The New American Anti-Semitism: The Left, The Right, and the Jews.

Ginsberg is a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, and he’s especially hard on progressives and urges American Jews to move away from their longtime support of Democrats to form a new political alliance, especially with evangelical Christians.

While U.S. presidents have given lip service in support of Israel, some Republican and many Democratic presidents have pressured Israel to make concessions to her sworn enemies that threaten the existence of the Jewish state.

Politico reports this about Israel’s ongoing attempt to eliminate Hamas: “Biden administration officials have spent weeks quietly drafting a multiphase postwar game plan that envisions a revamped Palestinian Authority [or PA] ultimately taking over the Gaza Strip.”

It takes a leap of faith to ignore what Hamas and other terrorist groups have as their objective and to believe that a “revamped” PA would not be overtaken again by Hamas or another terror group.

Antisemitism extends back to ancient Egypt. Ginsberg gets to what I think is the real source of antisemitism. Because Jewish culture emphasizes education and achievement, Jews reach the very top of economic and political life. But that excellence tends to cause resentment and jealousy. Underachievers need someone to blame and for some this tiny minority is an easy target.

In view of this, Ginsberg wonders why a large majority of Jews still vote for Democrats. “Since 1932,” he writes, “Jews have unfailingly given a plurality of their votes to Democratic presidential candidates. … On seven occasions (they) received more than 80 percent of the Jewish vote.”

Jewish Americans were once open to voting Republican, but their allegiance shifted under Franklin Roosevelt. That shift is hard to fatham, given Roosevelt’s barring of thousands of Jewish refugees from entering the country. (His excuse was they might be Nazi spies.) Roosevelt also refused to bomb the rail lines leading to Auschwitz.

But Jews largely voted for and supported Roosevelt, in part because the president had so many Jews in high government positions. Ginsberg writes that support caused some concern:, “the president was leery of being identified too closely with Jews. FDR asked his Jewish advisors to keep a low profile.”

Modern antisemitism is egged-on by Democratic members of “The Squad” in Congress. Representative Ilhan Omar from Minnesota, has equated the United States and Israel with Hamas and the Taliban. That was too much for some of her Democratic colleagues, who denounced her comments.

Some college campuses appear to be breeding grounds for modern antisemitism. A survey by the Anti-Defamation League found “73% of Jewish college students surveyed have experienced or witnessed some form of antisemitism since the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year alone. … Of the non-Jewish students erroneously assumed to be Jewish, nearly half (46%) stated that they had been targeted based on their assumed Jewishness.”

Ginsberg’s book makes a strong case on the roots of antisemitism. It also shows how Jewish-hatred continues to poison the politics and culture of many countries, including our own.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Tomorrow: Do embryos in the lab have the legal rights of children? John Stonestreet joins us to talk about it on Culture Friday. And, a review of the new Christian movie Ordinary Angels. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Myrna Brown.

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.

Jesus said: “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” —Luke 13:18, 19

Go now in grace and peace.

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