The World and Everything in It: January 16, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. I'm Dee Brestin, an author and a home church planter with the E. Free Church in beautiful Door County, Wisconsin. I sure hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! The votes are in from Iowa. What do they say about the front runner, Donald Trump?

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also, what the U.S. is doing to counter rebel attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. And, a man who helped others see the Creator’s work in ice crystals.

AUDIO: He was absolutely captivated with just how beautiful and intricate and delicate this thing was.

And WORLD Founder Joel Belz on what the Bible demands of government leaders.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, January 16th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

REICHARD: Time for news with Kristen Flavin.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, NEWS ANCHOR: Iowa caucuses » Donald Trump wins big in the first-in-the-nation caucuses. The former president won roughly half of all the votes cast.

TRUMP: We want to thank the great people of Iowa. Thank you. We love you all. What a turnout. What a crowd.

But former ambassador Nikki Haley had her share of supporters finishing 3rd with just under 20 percent of the vote. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished just ahead of Haley, topping 20 percent.

That as caucus-goers braved sub-zero temperatures. And WORLD’s Carolina Lumetta did as well. She was on the ground in Sioux Center, Iowa, and has this report.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: Turnout was down among the three precincts that gathered at Terrace View Events Center here in Sioux Center.

Officials expected nearly 700 people, but only about half that number showed up.

Once inside the heated auditorium Iowans got a chance to grab a microphone and make one final pitch on behalf of their chosen candidate.

Voters then checked a box on a small piece of paper and dropped it into a box.

At this location, Ron DeSantis was the candidate of choice. He inched ahead of Trump by five votes. Several supporters told me they were impressed by his record in Florida and his Christian messaging.

But each one also said they’ll support Trump if he’s the eventual nominee.

Vivek Ramaswamy received 24 votes here and less than eight percent statewide. Roughly three hours later, he suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump.

For WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta, reporting from Sioux Center, Iowa.

Weather » While Iowans braved sub-zero temperatures last night en route to caucuses across the state millions of other Americans are cranking up the heat and staying put.

In Kentucky, many parts of the state are buried under a blanket of snow. Gov. Andy Beshear warned on Monday.

BESHEAR: It is so cold and will be so cold that it is tough for the salt and other treatments for the roads to work, meaning roads could be slick anywhere throughout Kentucky.

He said the National Guard would be on standby to help stranded motorists.

Nearly half of all Americans, roughly 150 million people were under a winter weather advisory or warning last night.

Lloyd Austin released » Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is out of the hospital. Austin was discharged yesterday from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The defense secretary had been hospitalized for two weeks due to complications from prostate cancer surgery.

That wasn’t just news to the press, it was also news to the president. Neither the White House nor Congress was notified of his cancer until days after he was admitted.

He’s expected to work remotely before resuming his role at the Pentagon.

U.N. Secretary General on Gaza aid » United Nations chief Antonio Guterres is renewing his criticism of Israel amid a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

GUTERRES: The United Nations and our partners cannot effectively deliver humanitarian aid while Gaza is under such heavy, widespread, and unrelenting bombardment. This endangers the lives of those who receive aid and those who deliver it.

He added, “Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

The United States is also pressuring Israel to scale back military operations in Gaza in favor of much more targeted strikes. But the U.S. State Dept. has also called out U.N. leaders for what it says has been one-sided criticism amid the war largely ignoring the Hamas terror group’s practice of using civilians as human shields.

Houthi strikes » For the first time Houthi rebels have successfully targeted a U.S. ship just off the coast of Yemen.

Houthi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree:

SAREE: [Speaking Arabic]

Saree saying there that Yemen’s armed forces scored a precise and direct missile strike on the vessel in the Gulf of Aden yesterday.

But the Defense Department says no one was injured, there was very little damage, and the Gibraltar Eagle went on about its business.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced tough questions in Parliament yesterday over last week’s joint British and U.S. airstrike on Houthi targets.

Some in the government called for more Parliamentary oversight and restraint in the Middle East.

Sunak countered that:

SUNAK: We should also recognize the risks of inaction. It would weaken international security and the rule of law, further damage freedom of navigation in the global economy and send a dangerous message that British vessels and British interests are fair game.

The U.S. carried out another strike on Saturday.

House Could Punt On Hunter » House Republicans might not hold President Biden’s son in contempt of Congress after all. WORLD’s Alex Carmenaty explains.

ALEX CARMENATY: Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell told the leaders of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees that his client would agree to a closed-door meeting if a new subpoena was issued.

Last month, he defied a subpoena to testify at a closed-door meeting demanding the hearing be held in public.

GOP lawmakers want to question him about President Biden’s involvement in his son’s foreign business dealings.

The House will vote this week on whether to hold Hunter Biden in contempt unless a deal is reached for a closed-door interview.

For WORLD, I’m Alex Carmenaty.

I'm Kristen Flavin.

Straight ahead: results from the first caucus and what they mean for the race ahead. Plus, a pioneer in snow crystal photography.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 16th of January, 2024. This is WORLD Radio and we thank you for listening. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up on The World and Everything in It: Election season gets real.

Well, here now with more detail on what went down in Iowa last night is WORLD radio news editor, Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON: Not only is the election season getting real, the winter season is getting real. It was the coldest caucus night on record in Iowa.

The state faced arctic sub-zero temperatures and wind chills of negative-20 or colder.

Republican Senator Joni Ernst urged Iowans to bundle up, but get out there and vote.

ERNST: Iowans are a hardy people, and there are no snow days when it comes to caucus.

And many Republicans did brave the weather.

RESIDENT: It’s just bitter out there. But the funny thing — we were just in Arizona and came back yesterday afternoon. So we are awakened to something totally … cold! (laughs)

But the heat was on full blast in the many auditoriums hosting the kickoff of the 2024 election season.

AUDIO: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Iowa caucuses!

And thousands of Iowans turned out to support their respective candidates.

One couple attending their first ever caucus in Sioux Center told WORLD they’d be pulling the proverbial lever for Donald Trump.

VOTER: The four years he was in office, he did a really great job. The economy was doing very well …

But another caucus-goer said she was backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. She said with Trump it’s largely a question of temperament. `

WOMAN: I don’t always like how he calls people names and stuff like that. So DeSantis is more my type of guy.

Nikki Haley supporters were also out in force.

HALEY SUPPORTER: She seems to be the most practical. And I think she really cares about the people doing a good job.

There was some question about how the weather would affect turnout, in turn potentially affecting results. And it does appear many would-be caucus-goers stayed home.

But still, the poll numbers leading up to the caucuses were remarkably accurate. The latest average of polls showed Trump with 53 percent support, Nikki Haley with 19 percent, and Vivek Ramaswamy with 7 percent. All of those numbers were virtually spot on compared to the end results.

Gov. DeSantis enjoyed the closest thing to an upset, outperforming the polls by about 5 points.

DESANTIS: They threw everything but the kitchen sink at us. They spent almost $50 million dollars attacking us. No one’s faced that much all the way just through Iowa. The media was against us. They were writing our obituary months ago.

DeSantis finished with roughly 21 percent support, good for a second place finish. And that’s more than just a moral victory. Iowa is not a winner-takes-all state.

That means Trump does not receive all 40 of the state’s delegates. DeSantis won at least 8 of them. Nikki Haley 7.

Still, it was an impressive victory for Donald Trump. As of early this morning, it appeared he won all 99 counties.

For context, in 2016 he won just 37 counties in the State.

But at a victory speech last night, it sounded a lot like 2016 all over again.

TRUMP: We’re going to drill baby, drill right away. Drill baby, drill. We’re going to seal up the border.

But it was the end of the road for another Republican candidate. Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy pulled the plug on his campaign after finishing with less than 8 percent support in Iowa.

RAMASWAMY: Earlier tonight, I called Donald Trump to tell him that I congratulate him on his victory. And now going forward, he will have my full endorsement.

Ramaswamy was the surprise candidate of the 2024 election cycle. While never reaching double digits in major polls, the political newcomer seemingly came out of nowhere making it to the stage in each of the first four GOP debates.

Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, and Ron DeSantis will be right back on the campaign trail. The next vote is just one week from today when New Hampshire holds its primary.

The polls have that contest looking a little tighter with Trump up about 14 points over second-place Nikki Haley in recent New Hampshire polls.

Haley has won the endorsement of Gov. Chris Sununu who’s predicting an upset victory next week.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kent Covington.

REICHARD: We have a live map to help you keep up with what’s happening in this and the rest of the primaries and caucuses. WORLD’s website has an election center with live updated charts and graphs. You can check it out at wng.org/election2024. We’ve also included a link in today’s program notes.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: warfare in the Red Sea.

As you heard earlier, Houthi rebels managed to hit an American-owned container ship with a ballistic missile from Yemen on Monday. This follows the U.S. and U.K. last week firing on more than a dozen Houthi military bases.

NICK EICHER, HOST: The allies claimed to have wiped out about a fourth of the firepower of the Houthis. But this new attack on shipping indicates that the conflict is far from over.

Joining us now is retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery. He served more than three decades in the U.S. Navy as a nuclear-trained surface warfare officer. He now leads the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Admiral, good morning to you.

MARK MONTGOMERY: Well thank you very much for having me, guys.

EICHER: Admiral, what did the U.S. strike last week accomplish, both in damage inflicted and the message it sends to enemies and allies?

MONTGOMERY: Well, I'm glad you broke out the question that way, Nick, because it has two different issues. It is the question of what are we physically taking off the table? And in that case, what it was was missile launch sites, you know, the actual launchers, weapons stowage, and some of the command and control facilities. But then in the second strike we did it was to get at radars that do targeting. So what we're trying to do is reduce their ability to locate and, and shoot at Western merchant shipping and Western warships. But the bigger issue is, what are we doing in terms of deterrence? Because what was happening was, we were practicing deterrence by denial, which is a wholly defensive effort to lower the likelihood of Houthi drone and cruise missile strikes hitting merchant shipping or warships by doing convoy duty, having shooters placed at special choke points, you know, to do this, and that that was a very cost prohibitive method. We were using $2 million Standard Missiles to shoot down, you know, $30,000 drones routinely. And so what we practiced was what's called deterrence by cost imposition, which is punishing the enemy with strikes on their system. So we're trying to say to them, don't do this, or we will strike and remove your capability to do things and inflict damage and injury on your personnel. So from my perspective, it had achieved two different mission sets there

REICHARD: What does this new Houthi attack on Red Sea shipping tell you about how effective the U.S. strike was last week?

MONTGOMERY: Well, obviously, it wasn't 100% effective. And I don't think that the United States, United Kingdom or any other countries involved, perceived that it would be 100% effective, either in removing capability off the battlefield or in fully deterring them. So I think this is going to be an iterative process. I suspect another U.S. strike will occur to remove specific launch capabilities. But I think it would have been foolish to presume that a singular strike or a strike spread out over two days would have ended Houthi actions. So I suspect further strikes are required. I think we're being careful to not be perceived as escalatory versus the Houthis' major supporter, Iran, but at the same time explaining that this sort of activity towards international shipping is completely unacceptable, and will be prevented by the United States and its Western allies.

EICHER: I mentioned at the beginning, Admiral, that you had previously served as an aircraft carrier strike group commander. So I'd like to have you talk a bit about what it costs to defend these ships in the Red Sea. Now, you mentioned the high cost of US Defense missiles versus these drones. Is it possible that the Houthis are trying to degrade us? Not so much us them? Is that, is that a plausible way to look at it?

MONTGOMERY: I certainly don't think that they started that way. I'm not sure they knew how much our responsive weapon systems would be. You know, I think some might have hoped that our gun systems would work out against this, which would be you know, tens of thousands of dollars of rounds against tens of thousands of dollars of incoming drones. But it certainly has become clear over time that we are using expensive systems to take these down. It reminds us that we need to get our technology moving in terms of directed energy and other systems and lower cost munitions. But while the Houthis have benefited from this and certainly exposed a challenge for the United States, I don't believe it was their intent to do that from the beginning.

REICHARD: Final question here: do you think there’s a way to eliminate the threat of Houthi attacks without ending up in a shooting war with their sponsor, Iran?

MONTGOMERY: Yes, over time, I think that we'll be able to persistently attack and try their launch platforms. I think we need to stay away, obviously be very careful about collateral damage, you know, not accidentally strike non-targets or have weapon systems go off, you know, veer off course and do inappropriate damage. I think if we're careful and deliberate in how we do this, we can over time—this is a very specific capability that the Houthis have, and it will take some time to like rearm themselves from Iran. So I think we can do it. Look, again, I don't think you can get to zero but I think you can get very close to near zero. Remember, before October 7th, the Houthis were doing some of this intermittently anyway—these kinds of attacks. It did not just start after the Israel-Hamas dustup began; this predates that. So, while I think we can largely eliminate it, they'll probably always be a very small ability to disrupt shipping, but I think we can get it low enough so that international shipping can generally return to the Red Sea.

EICHER: Well it looks like we have about a minute and I wonder whether we ought to just zoom out to the bigger picture of the conflict. Admiral, what else? Do you think we need to know about this?

MONTGOMERY: You know, I think that, you know, the United States is in a terrific balancing act here between as, as Mary alluded to, the idea of not escalating with Iran, but at the same time, preventing Houthi actions that are disrupting 10% to 12% of internet world shipping. And that's a serious issue. You know, we're supporting Israel and its operations against Hamas, you know, in the removal as a military threat. And then we've got the final issue with Hezbollah and Iran, where we're trying again, I don't think Hezbollah is itching for a fight with Israel, but certainly one could start unexpectedly. So we're trying our hardest to deter that kind of event. So, you know, this is a terrific balancing act the Biden administration is in. I think they've come around after probably slightly late, but certainly not too late to handling the Houthi issue properly. And let's hope that we can keep everything else in balance vis-a-vis Iran.

REICHARD: Mark Montgomery is a retired Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy and a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Thank you for your time, sir.

MONTGOMERY: Thank you very much.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, January 16th. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a teenager’s obsession leads to a new discovery.

WORLD Reporter Jenny Rough now has a story about the pioneer of what we know as snowflake photography.

SUE RICHARDSON: I say it often, he had the mind of a scientist and the soul of a poet.

JENNY ROUGH, REPORTER: Sue Richardson opens the door of the Old Red Mill located in Jericho, Vermont.

SOUND: [Unlocking, opening a creaking door]

The Mill was built in the 1800s, but it’s no longer a place to ground grain—not these days. The Mill now houses the work of Wilson Bentley, a man who broke new ground in the field of science and photography. Richardson has a personal connection to him.

RICHARDSON: I am Wilson Bentley’s great-grandniece.

It all began around the year 1880 when Bentley’s mother gave her 15-year-old son a microscope.

The Bentleys lived on a family farm. They milked cows and grew potatoes. So young Willie was in tune with weather and crop cycles, and he had a deep appreciation for nature.

RICHARDSON: He looked at everything from a blade of grass to a flower pedal to a bird’s feather and a piece of stone.

And then one day, he looked at a very, very tiny object. One that could vanish at any moment, leaving no trace.

RICHARDSON: He was absolutely captivated with just how beautiful and intricate and delicate this thing was.

A snowflake. Or more accurately, a snow crystal.

RICHARDSON: The little individual ones that you see are snow crystals. A snowflake is when you have two or more stuck together. So when you see those big snowflakes falling, those are snowflakes.

A snow crystal is born when a molecule of moisture and a spec of dust intersect in the atmosphere. As it falls to earth, it grows.

RICHARDSON: They grow just like the rock crystals we find in granite. Snow crystals grow six-sided. They’re symmetrical.

Thankfully, snowflake season is a farmer’s slow season. So each winter, Bentley did little else but analyze and contemplate snow. To study snow crystals, Bentley first needed to capture them.

RICHARDSON: And he got a piece of dark cloth from his mother. He would step out into the storm and catch the falling snow, then take a broom straw and touch it to the center of the crystal he wanted to sketch and use that to transfer it to the cold microscope slide.

To make snow stick to the cold microscope slide—

RICHARDSON: And he used a feather, a turkey feather.

He worked in an unheated woodshed.

RICHARDSON: So if it’s 9 degrees out there, it’s 9 degrees in the woodshed where he’s working. He wore those big, heavy mittens, so there’d be no heat transference from his hands to anything.

He attempted to draw what he saw on a sketchpad.

RICHARDSON: And then he would sit there and sketch, looking through the microscope, holding his breath, turn away, catch a breath, come back to it.

A pine needle. A starfish. A blooming flower. A piece of coral. A fragment of white lace. Those are just a few of the words Bentley recorded in his papers to describe the shape of snow crystals.

But the sketches didn’t capture their exquisite beauty.

Bentley had heard of a new art—something called photography—and he had seen a camera before.

RICHARDSON: The problem was this camera that he wanted cost $100. And for perspective, at that point in time, land was selling for about $3 an acre.

Cost wasn’t Bentley’s only hurdle. His father called his son’s hobby a boyish ridiculous whim. But then his mother inherited some money, and she gave Bentley a camera for his 17th birthday. He knew—

RICHARDSON: That if he could combine a camera with a microscope, he could then photograph these snow crystals and share this beautiful discovery with the world.

He did combine the two. And wound up with a clunky, wooden apparatus that had lenses, tubes, and string to maneuver discs three feet away.

RICHARDSON: So now he could stand behind the camera, and by turning those discs could focus.

Bentley kept meticulous notes. Each time he captured and photographed a snow crystal, he wrote down all the weather-related data.

RICHARDSON: Corresponding entries that documented the temperature, the humidity, the part of the storm it came from, the leading edge, the middle, or the back end, wind direction...

He noticed the colder the temperature, the more solid the crystals. As the temperature warmed, the snow crystals branched out to become more open and delicate.

Bentley took over 5,000 photographs of snow crystals. He never found two alike, and the phrase no two snowflakes are alike stems from his discoveries. Experts today agree that even though some crystals might appear to be identical to the eye, there are differences at the molecular level.

RICHARDSON: Because there’s so many variables in how these crystals form in the atmosphere. That the likelihood of finding two alike is infinitesimal.

Bentley kept at his passion until he died at age 66. Ultimately, snow led to his demise. After a trip to Burlington, Bentley walked home in a snowstorm.

RICHARDSON: So off he goes in a blizzard over the mountain, seven miles. And by the time he got home, of course, he was soaked to the hide. He was chilled through. He took sick. It turned into pneumonia. He died on the 23rd of December.

Bentley never patented his microscope-camera invention. He never claimed creative rights over his photographs. In fact, when people contacted him to purchase negatives, he charged them five cents a piece, the cost to make one. The year he died in 1931, he was still only charging five cents a piece.

RICHARDSON: But it was never about the money for him. It was about sharing God’s beautiful gift with the world.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Rough in Jericho, Vermont.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, January 16th. Thank you for listening to 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: presidential politics from the past.

In this classic commentary, WORLD Founder Joel Belz on what he took away from a presidential candidate speech back in 1988. George H. W. Bush at the Republican National Convention.

JOEL BELZ, FOUNDER: There shouldn't be any quibbling over whether it is the responsibility of those who govern to tell the truth. Even if the people being governed don't demand it, the Bible does. Such truth telling is required on several fronts: 1) about what's happening. How is it that grown up people can keep lying about where they were and what they were doing? How is it that they think they can get away with it? From Chappaquiddick to Watergate to Iran-Gate to monkey business, we’re confronted with would-be leaders who demonstrate at the most elementary of levels that they aren't to be trusted.

And 2) about how it's happening. It is dishonest for Congress to pass a string of laws that puts constraints on society at large but not to tell that society forthrightly that those same laws do not apply to Congress itself. It is dishonest for the White House to pretend it is trimming some parts of the bloated federal budget, even citing amounts like 6% and 13% cuts, but never explaining that the figures refer only to how far under the originally projected budget the figures are–not how far under last year's budget they come.

Or 3) about the nature of people. Here is the hardest of all truth-telling assignments for government leaders. But any governance that doesn't take seriously the sinfulness of mankind is doomed.

The modern federal government teeters on the edge of moral and fiscal bankruptcy, in part because no one dares any longer speak honestly about who man really is, and how he relates to his Maker, God. Even George H. W. Bush in his otherwise excellent acceptance speech at the Republican Convention in New Orleans, blurred this critically important point when he spelled out his political philosophy by emphasizing how the individual is the starting point of society, then the family, then the community, etc. Not that we’re asking politicians to take on the role of professional theologians, but it doesn't take a professional theologian to assert that God belongs at the center of our considerations–that He is our starting point.

Having taken Vice President Bush to task for missing the boat with one statement in his acceptance speech, I'm eager to quote here from the same speech a passage in which he was right on target. Mr. Bush noted,

BUSH: There's graft in City Hall, and there's greed on Wall Street. There's influence peddling in Washington and the small corruptions of everyday ambition.

“I wonder sometimes if we have forgotten who we are. We're the people who sundered a nation rather than allow a sin called slavery. We were practical, but we didn't live for material things. We believed in getting ahead, but blind ambition wasn't our way. The fact is, prosperity has a purpose. It is to allow us to pursue ‘the better angels,’ to give us time to think and grow. Prosperity with a purpose means taking your idealism and making it concrete by certain acts of goodness.”

Well, Mr. Bush, you could have talked about the glory of God instead of our better angels. But even so, it pointed us in a good direction. That is the kind of leadership we can well afford to hear.

REICHARD: That was Joel Belz reading his commentary titled “The Nature of Authority” from his book, Consider These Things.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: with Iowa in the rear-view mirror, and New Hampshire just 12-hundred miles down the highway one week from today, we’ll talk about what to expect on Washington Wednesday.

And, what’s most helpful when friends go through serious loss like a miscarriage. 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.

The Bible records that “children were brought to [Jesus] that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.’ And he laid his hands on them and went away.” —Matthew 19:13-15

Go now in grace and peace.

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