The World and Everything in It: January 15, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. Hi, my name is Rem Siekmanm, living in wintry Bel Air, Michigan. I am honored to say that this is the fourth anniversary of my first preroll for The World and Everything in It. I've come to depend on these podcasts as a daily source of sound Biblically objective journalism. I hope that you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Today on Legal Docket: Employment discrimination, what cases go to court and what cases don’t.

LOEB: It's not a high bar, but there needs to be something more than mere personal preferences and subjective sensitivities of the particular employee.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, the Monday Moneybeat: David Bahnsen on trends to watch in 2024.

And the WORLD History Book. Today, King James and his new Bible translation.

AUDIO: James understands that a new authorized version of the Bible will add to his own supremacy and back up his view of what the Church of England should be.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, January 15th. Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. This is The World and Everything in It. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

REICHARD: Time for the news now with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Iowa caucuses setup » The 2024 presidential election officially begins today as Iowa Republicans hold the first-in-the-nation caucuses.

Donald Trump is up big in a recent average of Iowa polls. But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says poll numbers don’t tell the whole story.

DESANTIS: There’s not been a candidate that’s worked harder. And I think particularly here in Iowa, Iowans notice that. Iowans care about it. You’re not entitled to be nominated. You don’t just swoop in and get coronated. You’ve got to earn it. And we’ve earned it.

And former ambassador Nikki Haley said momentum is on her side, and she’s playing the long game.

HALEY: What we’ve said is that we just want to come out of Iowa looking strong. We want to come out of New Hampshire strong. We want to come out of South Carolina strong. You know, continuing state by state.

For his part, former President Trump said he’s confident as he made one final pitch to Iowans over the weekend.

TRUMP: And with your vote, we’re going to defeat crooked Joe Biden. We’re going to take back our country. We’re going to make America great again.

Iowa caucuses preview » And Iowans heading out to caucus today will be brave souls indeed, as they’ll be fighting sub-zero arctic temperatures. WORLD’s Carolina Lumetta reports from Sioux Center, Iowa:

CAROLINA LUMETTA: Snowplows are out in force across Iowa today to make sure voters can get to their precincts for the caucuses.

Monday’s weather forecast puts windchills as low as minus 50 degrees.

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy promises to deliver a “shock to the system” that the polls haven’t captured.

Former President Donald Trump earned endorsements yesterday from two former candidates for president: North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. Voting starts tonight at 7 across the state’s over sixteen-hundred precincts.

For WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta.

Weather » But Iowans aren’t the only ones feeling the freeze.

Arctic weather has sent temperatures plunging across much of the country.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul warned residents Sunday of life-threatening weather.

HOCHUL: Wind gusts were predicted to be 35 to 40 miles an hour. They are now gusting up to 50 miles per hour. What that means; whiteout conditions, limited or no visibility, and again, very, very dangerous on our roads.

Freezing temperatures are also slamming much of the south.

Lloyd Austin update » The Pentagon says Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin remains hospitalized at Walter Reed National military hospital, but is in good condition and is working from a private room.

A group of House Republicans has penned a letter directly to Austin demanding more information on why he kept the White House in the dark about his hospitalization for several days.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told CBS’ Face the Nation…

KIRBY: That is not the way it’s supposed to be. That is certainly something we need to get more answers to. The Pentagon is investigating this, and we’ll see what comes out of that. But that is not the way the process is supposed to work.

The secretary reportedly suffered complications from a surgery for prostate cancer.

He had also kept the White House in the dark about his cancer diagnosis.

Houthi capabilities intact » Houthi rebels in Yemen still have between 70 and 80 percent of their missile and drone arsenal intact after U.S. and British airstrikes last week, according to a New York Times report.

But a U.S. Army spokesman said Friday that the strikes achieved their goal.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield addressing the U.N. Security Council after the operation:

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: The aim of these strikes was to disrupt and degrade the Houthis’ ability to continue their reckless attacks against vessels and commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

The Iran-backed rebel group has repeatedly attacked commercial ships in protest of Israel’s war on Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

SOUND: [CHEERING]

Taiwan election » In Taiwan, voters picked a pro-democracy president in weekend elections.

Supporters of Lai Ching-te say his victory is a win for freedom.

TAIWAN: We choose our own president in Taiwan. We are a country. We are a country. We are a light of the world. We love freedom. 

Lai is the current vice president and rejects China’s claim of sovereignty over the island of Taiwan.

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken congratulated Lai sparking a rebuke from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Disney controversy » Disney finds itself at the center of another controversy …over a disturbing deleted scene from The Marvels that has gone viral for all the wrong reasons.

In the scene, the 16-year-old character Kamala Khan, also known as Ms. Marvel is aboard the empty spaceship of another female character, Captain Marvel.

AUDIO: Incoming call from New Asgard. Hello? Oh captain my captain! Oh, you’re not my captain.

She receives a video call from the lesbian Marvel character Valkyrie, who mistakenly think’s Ms. Marvel is married to Captain Marvel.

AUDIO: No! I’m Miss Marvel, Miss — that’s, we're not married. That would be I’m single.

Valkyrie then makes a sexually charged joke to the 16-year-old character that we cannot air or repeat.

The Marvels turned out to be one of the biggest box office bombs in the company’s history along with the ill-fated 2022 animated Disney movie Strange Worlds, which featured a gay teen romance.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: news from the Supreme Court on Legal Docket. Plus, the Monday Moneybeat.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this Monday, the 15th day of January, 2024. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s time for Legal Docket.

Three items on the docket today: one of them dealing with employment discrimination. That’s a live case before the Supreme Court, and it appears likely that the case will get at the question. What’s the tipping point for the courts to get involved in discrimination cases? It can’t entertain every single allegation. So what cases go to court? And what cases don’t? That’s one.

REICHARD: Two, a dispute that’s not currently before the court, but does fall into a broad category this court has been interested in—and that is, how much power should the administrative state have?

EICHER: And three, The Chief Justice and his annual report on the federal judiciary. Close to half of the report is a statistical snapshot of the workload of the judiciary, but the first part is topical: it deals with the role of technology in the legal profession. Chief Justice Roberts chose three images to illustrate his essay: the first was the early technology of the quill and inkwells, the second showed a justice using an electric typewriter in the 1960s, and the third, a justice using a desktop computer in the 90s.

REICHARD: I want to start there. And yes, the chief’s choice of images was strategic, I think. The computer user you described was Justice Sandra Day O’Connor who died last year. And as it happened, the main image on the first page was a striking photo of a federal court building in Arizona named for Justice O’Connor.

So there was that tribute, but what was on the chief’s mind was the rise of artificial intelligence in the legal profession.

He did make note that the profession is “notoriously averse to change.” Those last four words are a direct quote. And perhaps being averse to change is understandable, because he raises the question of whether AI will replace lawyers and judges!

Although he quickly adds that AI will transform the judicial system, but not necessarily replace lawyers—whew!

And he points out a big upside to AI, that it likely means cheaper access to the courts for the people. You can get basic questions answered along with forms to use without paying exorbitant lawyer fees.

EICHER: But he also notes some downsides.

Maybe you recall the news out of New York last year when some lawyers used ChatGPT to write briefs that cited case law that didn’t actually exist. Of course, that we know about it means they didn’t get away with it. The court fined and sanctioned those lawyers.

REICHARD: Uh, right, don’t do that!

AND THAT’S another noted downside of AI in the law: that is, the human side.

Reminds me of a famous, fictional scene from the movie Sully, about US Airways pilot Sully Sullenberger who made an emergency landing in the Hudson River in 2009.

Again, the filmmakers took considerable artistic license in portraying the safety board using computer simulations to blame Sully for making the wrong decision.

Actor Tom Hanks portrays Sully in this exchange with a board member.

TOM HANKS: We’ve all heard about the computer simulations and now we are watching actual sims but I can’t quite believe you still have not taken into account the human factor.

GOVERNMENT: Human piloted simulation show that you could make it back to the airport.

HANKS: No, they don’t. These pilots were not behaving like human beings. Like people who are experiencing this for the first time.

EICHER: The human factor would prevail here. And in court, human factors count, too as the Chief pointed out in his report: a moment of hesitation by a witness during testimony, or hands shaking in anxiety, or an assessment of whether someone is lying.

Those are human factors that judges are arguably better at assessing than a computer. For now. We’ll see.

And I mentioned the back half of the report, the courts by the numbers. Here are a few: petitions to the Supreme Court fell last year by 15%. Bankruptcy filings went up a 13% increase. Civil cases filed in federal district court went up by a lot, an increase of almost 25% over the previous year.

That’s it.

REICHARD: Alright. I’ll put this next item in the “what’s cooking” department.

The Supreme Court this term has several opportunities to rein in the vast powers of the administrative state. I want to tell you about a particular dispute that hasn’t made it yet, but I think could.

The issue is what’s known as the “no admit, no deny policy” of the Securities and Exchange Commission. It’s also known as the “gag rule.”

It says that when a person settles with the SEC after being accused of violating securities rules, that person cannot publicly deny the allegations.

That person can’t even create the impression of innocence, even if he or she is innocent.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance represents three clients who did settle and have since petitioned the SEC to end this practice. Peggy Little is one of its attorneys:

PEGGY LITTLE: The whole reason for the First Amendment is to allow us to criticize the government. And yet they are demanding the gag as a condition of settlement … . A lot of people settle their cases with the SEC just because they don't have the time or resources to fight them.

I did contact the SEC for comment, but received no response in time for today. It’s not too late. If I hear back, I’ll tell you about it.

So I was left with what I was able to gather from SEC statements—and it’s this: that the gag rule protects the agency’s reputation and encourages faster settlements. Aside from that, the agency says people are free not to settle and take it to court.

EICHER: But others say that’s hardly good enough to justify a blatant violation of due process and free speech that even silences those falsely accused.

One of the clients of the New Civil Liberties Alliance is the former CFO of Xerox. He was accused by the SEC of certain accounting errors. Barry Romeril settled with the SEC because he wanted to move on and avoid wasting time and money.

But he maintains he’s innocent, and yet he can’t defend himself because of the gag rule. Again, Peggy Little:

LITTLE: He is dying to tell the truth about his case. Barry is almost 80 years old. And he settled his case in 2003. And he is desperate to talk about why. I mean, it's very poignant and very disturbing that he could die before he's able to defend his reputation in the public sphere.

REICHARD: I asked her for concrete examples. Here’s one:

LITTLE: We've had other situations we’re aware of where there has been a perjured witness. You have someone who spoke at the original prosecution that has since been shown to have committed perjury. Of course, if you settle that case, you should be able to say, you know, the guy that was the whistleblower turns out to be a liar.

Still, the Supreme Court rejected Romeril’s petition in June 2022. No reason given, which is customary. And no court has yet ruled against the SEC on this issue, although some judges have called the “no admit, no deny” rule troubling on several fronts. I suspect this matter will continue to be litigated.

EICHER: On now to employment discrimination, an oral argument heard before the holidays.

The case is Muldrow v City of St. Louis, Missouri.

And here are the facts. Jatonya Muldrow is a sergeant with the St. Louis Metro Police Department. She’d been assigned to work in the Intelligence Division. She did that job for nine years.

But in 2017, a new supervisor transferred Muldrow along with several other officers, both male and female. The supervisor moved them to other positions with different responsibilities and schedules.

REICHARD: So Muldrow sued. She claims she was transferred because the new supervisor was looking to put a man in her old job. She says that’s sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

But she lost her case at trial and in her appeal, because she hadn’t shown she’d suffered some material harm. For example, she couldn’t show she’d been demoted. She couldn’t show she was paid less.

The Supreme Court took up her appeal. Muldrow’s lawyer, Brian Wolfman:

BRIAN WOLFMAN: Title VII bars an employer from discriminating against an employee with respect to the terms, conditions, or privileges of her employment because of the employee's sex. Respondent now concedes that a lateral transfer changes the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment. After all, a transferred employee cannot show up the next day and do her old job. Her job tasks have changed, and that's the most basic term of employment. So the only question left is whether transferring an employee because of sex is discrimination against that person. It is.

EICHER: Big clarifying moment here by Justice Clarence Thomas. Listen as he tries to get at the core of what counts as workplace discrimination.

JUSTICE THOMAS: So it doesn't matter if her salary is the same, the work arrangements are the same. I know your argument in the briefs is that her assignments changed, but her pay did not and her rank did not. But none of that is necessary under your argument to make a claim?

WOLFMAN: That is correct, Your Honor.

And that brought the hypotheticals.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wondered: what about a law firm trying to increase female leadership? When you promote only women is that discrimination?

What about police departments putting only black or Latino officers on certain neighborhood beats? Is that discrimination?

And Justice Elena Kagan pointed out there are different kinds of harm:

JUSTICE KAGAN: I mean, our discrimination law has recognized for many, many years that there are stigmatic injuries, right, where just the -- even if it's a very, very minor thing, you know, sending one set of people to one water fountain and another set of people to another water fountain is stigmatic injury. So I accept that point. But are you saying that all discrimination is stigmatic injury? 

Lawyer Robert Loeb represented the City of St. Louis. He argued that if you intend to prevail under Title VII, you need more than a mere allegation of discrimination:

ROBERT LOEB: It's not a high bar, but there needs to be something more than mere personal preferences and -- and subjective sensitivities of the particular employee. So it's a material objective harm. It's through the lens of an objective employee, not the frailties of a particular sensitive employee.

REICHARD: Justice Samuel Alito acknowledged that treating people differently based on a protected characteristic is wrong. He uses the legal term disparate treatment, saying such disparate treatment is wrong, but …

ALITO: I think the insight—right or wrong— of the courts that have imposed something like a significant disadvantage requirement is that although disparate treatment based on one of these characteristics is wrong, there should be some sort of threshold before it gets into court…

The Eighth Circuit developed a threshold test. It’s called the “significant disadvantage” test. And it is supposed to help establish whether someone can sue for discrimination in a job transfer.

Justice Alito said he wasn’t certain about that threshold, and perhaps that’s what the court will wind up deciding. Hard one to predict, other than we should know by the end of June.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket!

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s time to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen. He’s head of the wealth management firm The Bahnsen Group and he’s here now.

David, good morning!

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

EICHER: David, I mentioned your year in review at Dividend Cafe and look ahead to 2024 and that we would hit the highlights this week. So let’s make good on that. I think, though, instead of so much review of the year that was, let’s think about 2023 in terms of what from last year informs this year. Then we’ll move on to the forecast for 2024. Sound good?

BAHNSEN: That sounds great. Yeah. I mean, I think to jump into some of the issues with 2023, you're kind of looking for themes. I mean, we know that the economy did not go into recession, and that in a lot of ways the economy outperformed expectations. We know in markets that ended up being not just a good year, but a huge year. The S&P up 26%. We know that the Fed raised interest rates. And even though they paused in the last several meetings of the year from raising further, they didn't end up cutting rates at all last year. So there was a lot of upside surprise in the economy in the market in 2023. 

But then we also know a few other things. That actually the market because of how down it was in 2022. Even at the end of 23, even being up at 26%, it still wasn't back to where it was at the end of 2021. So, you know, there's a lot of nuance in how things happened in 2023. And that's often the case with markets. But I think when you talk about what's going to be still a theme in 2024, I'll start with what isn't a theme, because this disconnection kind of a theme. 

I think that in 2023, the stock market and a lot of what was going on with the economy, it was really a big, big story about bond yields, the bond market pricing, what it expected from the Fed. And I don't think the Fed is going to be the primary story in 2024. Now, the Fed's going to be a huge story, day to day market volatility, will they, won't they? When will they? All those things will be headline stories and create some extra short term volatility. 

But you know, the markets know, Nick, this year that the Fed is going to be cutting rates. And maybe it ends up four cuts. Maybe it ends up being six cuts. Maybe they start in March. Maybe they started in May. There's a little bit of variability around some of the particulars. But I think 2024 is a year in which the markets sort of know that stuff and 2023 was not. There was that uncertainty that lingered throughout the year.

EICHER: David, you identified eight themes for 2024. I think we’d run out of time trying to do them all. You know the WORLD listener profile pretty well, so as you think of all you’ve written what do you think is near the top “need to know”list  for 2024?

BAHNSEN: Yeah, you know, I sort of teased up already, what was our first theme, just a moment ago by saying that the Fed particulars are going to be overrated. But I would suggest that of those eight, there are two other ones that I would really focus on. The first one's easy. And I think it's something that all WORLD listeners are going to be familiar with. But what we said was that the election will be the top news story of 2024. But it will be the fifth place market story. And what we mean by that is, it won't even be, you know, the top four considerations in markets. It’s just going to be impossible for markets to price all of that in. They're not going to know. Most people are aware we're in a very, you know, 50/50 type, divided country. 

The other thing, and I'll try to go through quickly, but I think it is probably not just the most important thing for WORLD listeners. But the important tension that is playing out in the economy. And this is not a stock market story. This is really what I think is going to dictate how the economy does for the next couple of years more than anything else. And it’s this internal tension between two forces that are both playing out all at once. And people are welcome to like both of them. They're welcome to dislike both of them. But they can't deny that both are happening. And one is some movement towards D globalization that is less intensity and opening new markets globally, doing more business globally. And there is an intense desire to see more manufacturing come back on shore in the United States. 

So deglobalization, we have to remember, even if people like it, even if there's certain benefits to it, or benefits for certain sectors and people, it's still a cost. Right? I mean, we didn't globalize for no reason. There was globalization to the extent that there was. It opened up new markets. It attracted more capital, and attracted more customers. It might have created comparative advantages that decrease cost. And so de-globalization essentially means some increased cost for good or for bad. 

But then you're having that force, Nick, play out against what I would call the productivity boom, potentially a renaissance and capital expenditures. I've talked on the show before that, that construction is way up. We know that there is a big movement to see more semiconductor manufacturing taking place in the United States. 

That is an entire story that I simply don't know how it will play out. Because on one hand, I think there's big economic advantages that could come. But on the other hand, I'm still not convinced they're gonna get the workers they need. It's one thing to attract the jobs. It's another thing to attract the people. And so the deglobalization cost versus the productivity boom, it's, to me, the biggest macro economic story in the world right now.

EICHER: Ok. David Bahnsen founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group. David’s personal website is Bahnsen.com. His Dividend Cafe each week you can find at dividendcafe.com.

Thank you, David!

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick. Great to be with you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, January 15th, 2024. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, the WORLD History Book. 50 years ago this week, Egypt and Israel declare a truce after the Yom Kippur war.

EICHER: But first, 420 years ago today, a group of English Puritans meet with King James the First—pleading for reform within the Church of England…Here’s WORLD Radio Executive Producer Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER: Over five days in January, 1604, England’s recently crowned King—James the First—holds a religious conference at the palace of Hampton Court. It is an attempt to unify divided parties within the Church of England. Anglican bishops on one side—known as the conformists…and reform-minded Puritans on the other—non-conformists. The bishops and Puritans are at Hampton Court because James the First is not only the new head of England, but also the head of the English church.

Historian Brett Dolman:

DOLMAN: James is keen on discussion. But he's also keen that we don't get into the area where we are talking about reform of the church hierarchies...

James became king of Scotland as an infant. Born a Catholic, he was raised in the Protestant Church of Scotland familiar with Presbyterianism and Puritanism. He became king of England at age 35 after the death of his aunt, Queen Elizabeth the First. Shortly after, a group of Puritan leaders delivered the Millenary Petition to him claiming 1000 Puritan ministers had signed it.

The document outlines their grievances against the Church of England, including: confirmation, the sign of the cross during baptism, kneeling for communion, religious vestments, and a handful of other practices not taught in the scriptures. They also want a stricter observance of the Sabbath, higher quality clergy, and more accountability for bishops.

The Puritans believed as an outsider, King James provided them the perfect opportunity to initiate the changes they’d been preaching for decades. But James was about to surprise them.

During the first day of the conference, the King meets with the bishops alone to go over the Puritan’s complaints. The Puritans are in the building, but aren’t allowed into the king’s chambers. The Bishops sit at the king's side…James clearly favors the conformists.

On the second day of the conference—held on January 16th, 1604—King James calls the Puritans before him. They sit on a simple bench facing the king with two of the bishops also in attendance. James peppers them with questions.

Lucy Worsley is chief curator at Hampton Court.

WORSLEY: He's a clever man. He's dividing and ruling. He's stirring things up. And if he doesn't like what somebody says he'll just toss off some really crude insults.

James is prepared to make a few minor concessions, but after five hours of conversation, it’s clear that he is going to maintain the status quo within the church. He believes in the divine right of kings and is unwilling to institute broad reforms. James says more than once that if there’s no bishop, there’s no king…

But not all is lost. The main Puritan spokesman—John Rainolds—suggests to the king “there might be a new translation of the Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek.” This suits King James as very few at the time like the poorly translated Bishop's Bible at use in the Church of England. And King James distrusts the most popular alternative…the Geneva Bible.

Historian Lori Anne Ferrell:

FERRELL: What he probably doesn't like is the characterization, especially in the Old Testament of Kings as tyrants.

So James sees an opportunity to bring the two sides together by having them cooperate on a new translation. Once again, Brett Dolman:

DOLMAN: James understands that a new authorized version of the Bible will add to his own supremacy and back up his view of what the Church of England should be.

The king sets ground rules for the translation work—greatly limiting the influence of the Puritans. He prohibits most marginal notes and mandates keeping traditional ecclesiological titles. More than 40 scholars work for nearly seven years to produce the king’s authorized version of the Bible.

It does not immediately bear the king’s name…it’s not until about 200 years later that the authorized version becomes known as The King James Bible.

Our second and final story today comes from 50 years ago. President Richard Nixon addresses the nation:

NIXON: The governments of Egypt and Israel—with the assistance of the government of the United States—have reached agreement on the disengagement and separation of their military forces.

The 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Yom Kippur War had officially come to an end a couple of months earlier…but armed conflict continued between the parties. Richard Nixon is distracted with his own conflict as he’s fighting the Watergate investigation. So the possibility of peace in the Middle East is a welcome bit of news for the embroiled president.

Nixon sends US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to the region to personally negotiate an end to hostilities. For days Kissinger traveled back and forth between various capitals, leading to the phrase: “shuttle diplomacy.” Egypt agrees Israel to use the Suez Canal for shipping, as well as committing to rebuild destroyed villages along the canal - which Israel hopes will discourage them from re-starting the war.

And that all leads to the disengagement treaty that Egypt and Israel sign on January 18th, 1974.

NIXON: The agreement is scheduled to be signed by the Chiefs of Staff of Egypt and Israel at noon…at kilometer 101, on the Cairo-Suez road.

Israel controls much of the Sinai peninsula, but the agreement sets clear boundaries and permits both nations to maintain its military without interference - with a U.N.-controlled buffer zone between. Both nations agree the treaty is only the first step toward peace. President Nixon is hopeful:

NIXON: In the past generation, there have been, as we know, four wars in the Middle East, followed by uneasy truces. This, I would say, is the first significant step toward a permanent peace in the Mideast.

Within a few weeks, the Nixon administration’s Middle East diplomacy will be overshadowed by Nixon’s impeachment investigation.

But five years later, Mideast peace makes headlines once again as leaders from Egypt and Israel join US President Jimmy Carter at Camp David, signing a peace treaty. That agreement includes Israel giving the Sinai peninsula back to Egypt—normalizing relations between the two nations. That peace treaty still holds today.

The interview clips for our first story all came from a 2011 BBC documentary on the King James Bible hosted by Adam Nicolson.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: On tomorrow’s program: Results from the Iowa caucuses tonight. Our reporter is there and bundled up. And, remembering a pioneer in snowflake photography.

That and more tomorrow.  I’m Nick Eicher.

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

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

Jesus said: “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!”—Matthew 18:7

Go now in grace and peace.

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