The World and Everything in It: January 24, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. My name is Kate Maisel. I'm a newspaper editor living in Chantilly, Virginia. I was introduced to the WORLD podcast by my dad, Ed Williams who lives in Washington state. Thank you dad. I hope you enjoy this program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Voters go to the polls in New Hampshire and Congress passes another short-term spending plan.

AUDIO: You know, it is a little bit like Groundhog Day. There's no question. We don't, we shouldn't be doing this over and over. We should have gotten here already.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, WORLD Tour. And, a closer look at America’s most misunderstood branch of the military.

AUDIO: You couldn't use an ATM without the Space Force. They're in charge of GPS. We wouldn't have Waze or Google Maps and stuff like that without the Space Force.

And WORLD commentator Brad Littlejohn on how Christians can respond to election hysteria.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, January 24th. 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 now with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: New Hampshire » Donald Trump is the winner of the first presidential primary contest of 2024.

TRUMP: Well, I want to thank everybody. This is a fantastic state. This is a great, great state …

His victory last night comes after winning a majority of the delegates in the Iowa caucuses, 20 for Trump to Haley’s 8.

In New Hampshire, a total of 22 delegates were up for grabs, and Trump comes away with a majority of those as well.

But Haley said to those who already consider Trump the presumptive nominee …

HALEY: I have news for all of them. New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last in the nation.

We’ll have much more on the New Hampshire vote later in the program.

Next up is Nevada followed by South Carolina, the state where Haley served as governor for 6 years before accepting Trump’s job offer as ambassador to the United Nations.

U.S. airstrikes in Somalia » The Pentagon announced Tuesday that U.S. forces carried out airstrikes that killed three al-Qaida-linked terrorists. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports:

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Defense officials say the targeted strikes killed al-Shabab militants in a remote area, adding that there were no civilian casualties.

Al-Shabab is al-Qaida's largest network. And the Pentagon says it has proved both its will and capability to attack the United States.

Somalia’s government requested the airstrike as the terror group has been waging a 16-year insurgency against the government.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Border/Ukraine » On Capitol Hill, Senate leaders say it is critical for lawmakers to strike a bipartisan deal to help secure the border and fund aid to Ukraine, among other things.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune:

THUNE: It is an incredible crisis. These are national security implications associated with what’s happening at our southern border.

And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer added:

SCHUMER: A defeat for Ukraine will make the world a more dangerous place for the United States. Whatever cost we bear to resist Putin today will be magnified in the future. We dare not go down that road.

Schumer said he believes lawmakers are close to a deal in the Senate on the supplemental package of just over $100 billion dollars, but they’re not there yet.

Talks are also still ongoing with the White House. President Biden says he’s open to policy changes on the border.

Austin at Ukraine Defense Group meeting » In the meantime, the United States is out of money for Ukraine as Ukraine’s military has reportedly had to start rationing ammunition.

And until U.S. lawmakers can agree on a new funding package Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin is urging other allies to bridge the gap.

AUSTIN: Putin hopes that missiles and drones will demoralize the Ukrainian people and break the fighting spirit of the Ukrainian military. So I urge this group to dig deep to provide Ukraine with more life-saving ground-based air defense systems and interceptors.

Russia on Tuesday fired a barrage of more than 40 ballistic and other missiles into Ukraine’s two biggest cities, damaging apartment buildings and killing at least 18 people.

CIA Russia video » The CIA is working to persuade Russians who feel betrayed by their leaders to share secrets with the United States.

The spy agency has released a new Russian-language video on social media that provides information about how to contact the agency.

AUDIO: [Russian]

The ad’s narrator says Russian citizens have to pay bribes to find work while the country’s elite line their own pockets.

CIA Director William Burns in July said more Russians are growing disillusioned with the war in Ukraine.

San Diego floods » In San Diego stunned residents, some breaking down in tears, are pulling soggy and muddy furniture out of their homes.

SOUND: [Gushing water]

After a historic downpour turned neighborhood streets into rivers.

Miguel Miller with the National Weather Service:

MILLER: It was one of the wettest days in history and the wettest day ever in the month of January, and records go back to 1850.

Flash flooding forced evacuations and swept away vehicles. But fortunately, no injuries reported.

One local resident said he’s lost just about everything, including a valuable baseball card collection.

RESIDENT: I've been collecting since I was a child. Everything is gone. Disabled, no work. I don't know what else I can do.

The County as a whole received up to five inches of rain in some areas in a matter of hours.

Homeless ministry case » A small community church in Ohio is suing after local authorities hit the church’s pastor with 18 criminal charges for allowing homeless people to stay in the church building overnight. WORLD’s Christina Grube reports.

CHRISTINA GRUBE: Bryan is a city of just under 9,000 people in northwestern Ohio.

That’s where Chris Avell pastors an Evangelical church called Dad’s Place.

The city said allowing homeless people to stay at the church violated several local zoning and safety ordinances.

After the city charged Avell, the church pushed back, filing a federal lawsuit against the city. It claims officials unjustly targeted and harassed the church, and that its actions were unconstitutional.

The church’s lawyer says the church may remain open to those in need until March when a judge will consider an injunction against the city.

For WORLD, I’m Christina Grube.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: the one thing that is really and for true the thing that is straight ahead. Plus, The U.S. Space Force.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 24th of January, 2024.

You’re listening to The World and Everything in It and 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 Washington Wednesday…Today, a deeper look at the spending deal Congress made with the White House last week.

But first, the Republican race for New Hampshire.

WORLD reporter Carolina Lumetta was in the Granite State all day, all night, and she brings us this story.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: Nikki Haley came out of Iowa aiming to win over New Hampshire’s unique voter base.

LUMETTA: How did you vote today?

ANDERSON: Republican.

LUMETTA: Are you a registered Republican?

ANDERSON: Nope, Independent.

LUMETTA: Alright, so who did you pick today?

ANDERSON: Nikki Haley. Because I don’t want Trump.

Amy Anderson is one of nearly 350,000 Independent voters who make up the largest subgroup of the New Hampshire electorate. The state is one of just a few that allow open primaries: meaning that if you’re undeclared on election day, you can pick a party and vote in their primary. Partly for that reason, Independents don’t consistently lean in one direction or the other. Some voters told me they were Republican one year, Democrat the next. Adrianne Ligget said that’s one of the benefits of New Hampshire’s system.

ADRIANNE LIGGET: I vote for who I believe can do the best job regardless of party…and that’s why I like being an undeclared.

But on primary night, Haley was unable to pull enough Republicans and Independents to get the win she needed. Former President Donald Trump declared victory shortly after polls closed.

TRUMP: We won New Hampshire three times now, three. 

With about 90% of the votes counted, Trump led Haley 54% to 43%.

Trump voters I spoke to said they knew more about Trump than about his challengers, and trusted his handling of issues like the economy and the border. That includes Republican Gabriela Cernolev:

CERNOLEV: I became a U.S. citizen in 2015, and I’ve been voting for President Trump ever since.

Rick Gamache, also a Republican, said he voted for Trump because he’s more concerned about the general election.

RICK GAMACHE: It's clear to me that he will be the nominee out of this whole election cycle at this point, and I believe he will put us in the direction that we need to go.

On the Democratic side in New Hampshire, President Joe Biden also won the primary…but in an unusual way.

LAFORD: I wrote in Joe Biden. I don’t quite understand why Biden wasn’t on the ballot.

That goes back to a fight between the Democratic National Committee and New Hampshire over which state goes first in the 2024 election cycle. After New Hampshire refused to accept the DNC’s decision to start with South Carolina, the DNC ruled Tuesday’s vote a “rogue primary.” As a result, no delegates for the national convention will be awarded since the state violates the party’s scheduling rules. The rift has left some Democratic voters frustrated with President Biden.

EMERY: He didn't show up, you know, last time and is not showing up this time. So it's a little bit of a slap in the face.

Democratic leaning voter Shannon Emery cast her ballot for Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips mainly because President Biden’s age and controversial running mate Kamala Harris made her uneasy.

EMERY: I don’t know what Kamala stands for really. You know what I’m saying, if I did, if I could hear more about it, it would be a different story, I’d feel a little bit better, but right, they’re not here, they’re not talking, they’re not stating what’s going on.

Because Biden sided with the DNC, his name did not appear on the New Hampshire ballot. When long-shot challenger Dean Phillips set out to capitalize on Biden’s absence, the president’s supporters in New Hampshire put together a hasty but effective write-in campaign. Phillips finished with roughly 20 percent of the vote…far behind President Biden.

The next elections are on February 6th in South Carolina for Democrats, and Nevada for Republicans.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta in Nashua, New Hampshire.

EICHER: You can learn more about the results in detail with World’s 2024 Election Center. wng.org.

REICHARD: Up next, Congress kicks spending decisions down the road again.

The stage for this was set back in November when Congress and the White House worked out a deal to set new funding deadlines. Here’s Speaker Mike Johnson the day the deal passed.

JOHNSON: We're taking this into the new year to finish the process and get back to the original way that this is supposed to work. And by the way, the House Republican Conference is committed to never being in this situation again, I'm done with short term CRs, we are, we're resolved. 

Two months later, and Speaker Johnson was not done with CRs, that’s Hill talk for “continuing resolutions.”

EICHER: Was there anything different about this newest deal…and are the Republicans who pushed Kevin McCarthy out still on board with the current speaker?

Joining us now to answer those questions and more is Leo Briceno. He’s a politics reporter for WORLD based on Capitol Hill in Washington.

REICHARD: Leo, good morning!

LEO BRICENO, REPORTER: Good morning, Mary.

REICHARD: The plan was to vote on appropriations bills in batches, some due in January and others due in February. Was any meaningful action taken between November and last week?

BRICENO: Well, that is still the plan going forward. But to answer your question, no, which is the reason they really had to punt it until early March, one deadline on March 1, and then another separate one on March 8, kind of continuing with this two step approach. But I think the most significant development as far as appropriation goes in that time was just the outline of a top line number that the House is now working with, which for non discretionary spending would be $1.59 trillion, or close to $1.6 trillion. That’s all the details they know, though what the actual substance of that spending agreement looks like still remains to be seen. They have to hash that out through the 12 bills that you mentioned.

REICHARD: Leo, where are the bottlenecks in the current appropriations process? House Republicans get a lot of flak for passing so-called poisoned bills that call for spending cuts…but what has Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer been doing about the appropriations bills the House has sent over so far?

BRICENO: Yeah, well, they’ve passed three of them. So they had kind of a batch, but none of them have made it to the President. And none of them really stand a shot of getting signed into law, at least not the ones that have already been passed, because those bills, as you alluded to, contain certain policy ride-ons, right. Some of them have provisions that are a little bit pro-life language in there. Some of them would remove things like drag queen storytime. Small elements like that, that don’t really have a lot to do with spending or is sometimes they do have to do with spending. Sometimes they include reductions to whatever it is the budget they’re addressing. And so because of these policy riders, that 12 bills that Republicans had been working on prior to the agreement that Johnson cut with Democrats, they’re not likely to get passed. So with respect to the question on bottlenecks, those policy riders are a big part of the reason why the Senate hasn’t gone ahead and picked up all the bills that Republicans have passed so far, which at this point, would account for about 70% of the government’s funding into 2024.

REICHARD: How do Republicans you’ve spoken to feel about passing another continuing resolution?

BRICENO: I think, overall, not great. But within that not great, there are kind of two separate camps. So there are the very outspoken conservative Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus, like chip Roy like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who have very vocally said this is a complete failure by Republicans, because it extends last year spending without altering at all, without without achieving any cuts, essentially an extension of what the government was spending under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That’s one camp. 

There’s a separate camp, I would say a larger camp of Republicans who look at the CR and say, it’s unfortunate that we’re having to do this again. But really, given the timeline, it was something that was necessary to keep the government open. Without the CR, the government would have shut down last Friday. So one of those moderate Republicans, Marcus Molinaro, had this to say.

REP. MOLINARO: The framework the speaker negotiated is, is the best scenario with a divided government. Now it’s a matter of negotiating out those appropriation bills. You know, it is a little bit like Groundhog Day. There’s no question. We don’t, we shouldn’t be doing this over and over. We should have gotten here already, but we are here now. We are progressing, I think relatively earnestly and I’m optimistic we can get to an agreement.

REICHARD: Well since November, the House has lost three members…all Republicans. Kevin McCarthy of California resigned last month, and George Santos of New York was expelled earlier this month. And then last week, Representative Bill Johnson of Ohio gave his farewell address.

BILL JOHNSON: But I hear a new call. It’s a call to help prepare the next generation of American leaders and I’ll be doing it at one of our country’s finest public institutions of higher learning, Youngstown State University.

The three seats will be filled by special elections in the next couple months.

Leo, how does that affect Speaker Mike Johnson’s ability to lead on funding negotiations?

BRICENO: It makes his job harder, because the margin for error is now like a two vote margin. Speaker Johnson really can’t afford to lose any Republican votes if he plans to pass legislation without Democratic support. Now, he could use Democratic support, as he did with the continuing resolution this past week. But I don’t think he’s going to be able to count on that Democratic support for you know, everything that he wants to pass. Surely some of these items have to be things that Republicans can rally around and that’s just going to be harder to do with less room for disagreement there.

REICHARD: Leo Briceno is a politics reporter for WORLD’s Washington Bureau. Leo, thanks for this report!

BRICENO: Thank you, Mary.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Nigeria, Onize Ohikere.

AUDIO: [Sound from hospital]

ONIZE OHIKERE: Cameroon malaria vaccinations — We start today in Cameroon where health workers have kickstarted a first-of-its-kind routine malaria vaccination program.

The Central African country plans to vaccinate about 250,000 children by 2025. The vaccination is free for all infants up to six months old.

Authorities are using the RTS,S vaccine developed by the British drug-maker GlaxoSmithKline. The shot is only about 30 percent effective, requires four doses, and fades after several months.

Kate O’Brien is the vaccines director at the World Health Organization.

OBRIEN: The malaria vaccines have been shown to reduce clinical malaria cases by more than half in the year after vaccination, and that level of efficacy goes up when the vaccine is provided seasonally. In that case, it prevents about three-quarters or 75% of malaria cases.

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease that kills more than 600,000 people each year—the majority of them in Africa.

The global vaccine alliance—Gavi—said 20 other countries plan to roll out the same program this year. The World Health Organization has endorsed a second malaria vaccine developed by Oxford University and is still under production.

AUDIO: [Chanting protesters]

France protests — Over in France, about 16,000 protesters holding placards and playing music turned out on the streets of Paris to oppose a contentious immigration law.

Similar crowds turned out in other cities, including in Nantes and Marseille.

AUDIO: [Chanting protesters]

The legislation strengthens France’s ability to deport foreigners and toughens opportunities for foreigners to access social welfare.

Lawmakers approved the law in December. But French President Emmanuel Macron had said some parts of the bill are unconstitutional.

PROTESTER: [Speaking French]

This 20-year-old protester says the law creates a divide between French and non-French people.

The Constitutional Council will vote tomorrow on whether all articles of the bill are in line with the constitution.

Ecuador arrests — In Ecuador, authorities detained nearly 70 suspects after they tried to seize a hospital in the southwest Guayas province.

Authorities said they belonged to a criminal group, whose member was receiving treatment. Police said the gang was trying to guard the patient from rival gangs.

Ecuador is currently under a two-month state of emergency amid a surge in violence.

Gang violence has destabilized parts of Ecuador, as transnational cartels use its ports to send drugs to the United States and Europe.

Over the weekend, Ecuador and Colombia both intercepted two semi-submersible vessels with drugs onboard in different operations. They each arrested three suspects.

Jaime Vela is the head of Ecuador’s Armed Forces.

VELA: [Speaking Spanish]

He says here that the ongoing military operations are targeting terrorist groups.

A U.S. delegation is in Ecuador this week for talks on bilateral security and collaborative responses to the criminal organizations.

AUDIO: [Music, cheering, fireworks]

India temple opening — We wrap up today at religious celebrations in India marking the opening of a controversial Hindu temple.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the opening ceremony at the temple still under construction.

The worship site is dedicated to one of Hinduism’s most revered deities. It was also built over a razed 16th-century mosque in the northern city of Ayodhya.

A Hindu mob burned down the mosque back in 1992. About 2,000 people died in ensuing riots. A 2019 Indian Supreme Court ruling over the ownership of the land paved the way for the temple’s construction.

MODI: [Speaking Hindi]

Prime Minister Modi says here that the temple’s opening marks the dawn of a new era.

The ceremony marks a crucial political victory for Modi and his nationalist party ahead of upcoming elections this year.

Many opposition leaders boycotted the event, saying it contradicts India’s stance as a secular nation.

That’s it for today’s WORLD Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Last week, a man in Michigan fell through thin ice on a lake and couldn’t get out. Bystanders called 911. Police officer Kammeron Bennetts came to the rescue.

BENNETTS: Did you walk in from here? I'm gonna try to send this out to you okay? Alright, you ready? I'm gonna see if I can get this to you.

Bennetts first tried throwing a rescue disc out on a rope, but he couldn’t get it close enough for the man to grab.

Time’s running out here, so thinking quickly, the officer got the man’s dog involved.

BENNETTS: Ruby, come here! Come here, Ruby. Come here. Will she get ahold of this? Come here, can you take that?

NICK EICHER, HOST: Good girl.

RECHARD: He tied the disc to her collar. Ruby ran to her owner. The owner grabbed the disc and hung on.

BENNETTS: Keep pulling that disk! Pull on the disk, kick your feet. Keep kicking your feet. Pull, pull, pull!

Man’s best friend proving it once again!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, January 24th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

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

Today on Concurrently: The News Coach Podcast, Kelsey Reid and Jonathan Boes talk about news literacy and so-called digital dementia.

REED: One of the other things that I really want to challenge is this kind of Luddite response to technology. Now, we're trying at Concurrently to have a balanced view.

BOES: If we were totally opposed to digital technology, it would be a problem that we have a podcast.

REED: We can't really, you know, do what we're doing without, we are highly dependent on what the Lord has allowed for man to create, it is not going to be a responsible attitude or practice for us to just completely retreat from the world of technology. And so I kind of resist the tone of “all technology is bad,” which because they do not define their terms of what excessive screen time is, they leave you to assume that you know what they're talking about in some of these terms. Or, you know that you're going to do the research, which we've already made that point; sometimes we are not slowing down enough to do that research.

BOES: I want to go back to this idea of all the links in this article, it really creates the sense that there is a wealth of sources. But when you have so many links, it can both create the sense that there's a lot of evidence, while also presenting so much of it that you can't possibly dig into it all. And so it makes it really easy just to skim and see like, “Oh, that looks like an academic resource. Sure - this is fine.” It can kind of trick your brain into thinking that this article has been really well-researched.

You can hear the entire episode of Concurrently today wherever you get your podcasts. And find out more at concurrentlypodcast.com.

EICHER: Coming next on The World and Everything in It: The Space Force.

The year was 1947. That’s when Congress voted to create the United States Air Force. Congress would take almost three quarters of a century before voting in another branch.

REICHARD: Right, the Space Force plays a vital role in national security. Yet most people don’t know what it does, or why we even need it.

WORLD Radio Correspondent Jeff Palomino caught up with some members of the Space Force to find out.

JEFF PALOMINO: Members of the Space Force have heard it all. Some find it hard to take them seriously. It doesn’t help that their soldiers are called Guardians.

BABY GROOT: I am groot.

It could also be they’re the only service with a Steve Carrell parody on Netflix.

TRAILER: The President is creating a new branch of the United States Military - Space Force. (Laughter). Which Mark will run. I don’t…hmmm…(Laughter)

But whatever the reason, the United States Space Force is a branch of the military most Americans just don’t understand.

Captain Victoria Garcia is in the Space Force.

GARCIA: Typically, I get asked about alien interactions and UFOs or my ties to NASA…

But it’s not hard to understand the Space Force. It turns out, America’s most misunderstood military branch may, in fact, be its most important.

LLOYD: Space Force is our newest military service. It was founded on December 20, of 2019.

Chief Master Sergeant Caleb Lloyd is the Senior Enlisted Leader for Space Operations Command. He’s stationed at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs. The SpOC—as it’s called—does the Space Force’s missions.

LLOYD: We're responsible broadly for the space domain. We're focused on preserving freedom of action in the domain as it becomes increasingly contested and congested.

Technical Sergeant Timothy Steele recruits for the Space Force.

STEELE: All their career fields are really techie, cyber, intelligence, satellite systems. I mean, they control everything in outer space.

That high-level view of the Space Force raises an often asked question: Does America really need a separate service focused solely on space? Whether you know it or not, you do things every day that rely on space. Sergeant Steel has examples.

STEELE: You couldn't use an ATM without the Space Force. They're in charge of GPS. A lot of people don't know that. We wouldn't have Ways or Google Maps and stuff like that without the Space Force.

But it’s not just the American public that needs space. The other military branches absolutely depend on it. Capabilities in space move aircraft carriers from Point A to Point B, guide bombs to targets with pinpoint accuracy, and give real-time pictures of the battle-field not possible with maps. For Capt Garcia, this is another reason we need the Space Force.

GARCIA: We all understand that space is vital to our military operations in all domains. It requires a dedicated military branch to protect that and to deter aggression. It's critical to our national security.

So what does the Space Force do? The branch is led by a four-star General called the Chief of Space Operations. He’s a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. From headquarters at the Pentagon the service is divided into three field commands. Space Readiness and Training Command - or STARCOM - brings Guardians into the Space Force. Space Systems Command does acquisitions. They also support space launches in partnership with companies like Space X. The SpOC, where Chief Lloyd works, has nine Space Mission Deltas. Space Delta Two at Peterson Space Force Base does space domain awareness. Among other things, they track over forty-seven thousand objects in space.

LLOYD: They are looking out into space to track objects and understand potentially when, for instance, a collision might happen with the International Space Station.

Space Delta Four is at Buckley Space Force Base. That’s just outside Denver.

LLOYD: They’re our missile warning Delta. Their focus is missile warning for intercontinental ballistic missiles to theater ballistic missiles.

In twenty-twenty, missile warning made all the difference to 2,000 American troops at Al-Assad Air Base in Iraq. Here’s a report from 60 Minutes.

60 MINUTES: It was the largest ballistic missile attack ever against American forces.

Guardians at Buckley gave the exact location of that attack, and no lives were lost that day. The other seven Space Mission Deltas do things like electronic warfare, intelligence, and cyber operations. One Delta even does something called orbital warfare. Think of that as a “neighborhood watch” program, only one that operates twenty-two thousand miles from earth.

LLOYD: And I think that is really the bulk of Space Operations Command in a really succinct way.

The idea for a separate space branch of the military has been around since the 1990s. There were many options of how to do it. In the end, though, bi-partisan Congress decided to put it in the Department of the Air Force, just like the Marine Corps is in the Department of the Navy. The Marines may refer to themselves as “The Few, the Proud,” but there are over one hundred seventy-thousand active duty marines. The Space Force? It has only 8,000 active duty guardians. This leads to our last question about the Space Force: Why would anyone want to be in it? For recruiter Sergeant Steele there are a lot of reasons.

STEELE: Their career fields in the Space Force is the main driving factor for applicants wanting to be in there. They get to deal with ultra-high technology. They get to receive a top-secret clearance. And then just being a part of something bigger than yourself definitely is awesome.

So, next time you hear about the Space Force, don’t think this.

LIGHTYEAR: To Infinity and Beyond!

Instead, remember this.

LLOYD: They should never know they needed us, but they should always know that we're developing the capabilities to maintain freedom and security and as we progress as a society out into the heavens that we're always going to be there. We're always ready.

Reporting for WORLD—and everything over it—I’m Jeff Palomino.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, January 24th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next: presidential politics. WORLD Opinions commentator Brad Littlejohn says many Christians today may be concerned about the state of our country, but we don’t have to be afraid.

BRAD LITTLEJOHN: This election year, Americans of all political persuasions are liable to find themselves in a state of nervous agitation. Election years are always times of heightened tension, but it would be hard to think of one in living memory that has provoked such fear and uncertainty. Republicans face the drama of whether their frontrunner will even be allowed on the ballot in some states or possibly be in prison. For Democrats, Biden’s frailty, age, and unpopularity have led some to speculate about a surprise convention-day switch.

How should Christians respond?

Above all, with fearless unflappability. In an age of epidemic anxiety, there is no stronger witness that Christians can offer the watching world than a refusal to let our confidence be shaken or our happiness be dimmed by political outcomes.

One need not be a Christian to see the wisdom in refusing to get caught up in election-year hysteria. In 2020, many conservatives worried that a Biden victory would result in the abolition of the Electoral College, Puerto Rican and D.C. statehood, the packing of the Supreme Court, and other profound constitutional changes. As bad as many policies of the last three years have been, none of these conservative nightmares have come close to fruition. Nor have we witnessed a return to 1960s-era violence as some expected after the riots of 2020 and the chaos of Jan. 6.

All of this could change, of course, and there is no question that American society is in the midst of profound disruptions. But most of the key trends have been unfolding for decades, often largely unaffected by who inhabits the White House or which party controls Congress. Such things matter and we should vote wisely, but we should also keep our eye on the bigger picture. For Christians, the biggest picture of all is the perspective of eternity, and the confidence it affords that God will work His purposes out for our good.

Given these considerations, one of the most practical things we can do is exercise charity and forbearance toward fellow Christians. To be sure, we should not fall into moral relativism or false equivalence. Both political parties may be cynical, dishonest, and power-hungry—but only one has openly committed itself to a vision destructive of human life and human nature. Still, voting for a candidate does not imply endorsing all their personal or party platforms. This is especially the case when we consider the decision not to vote, or to vote for a third party, a decision many are considering this year.

A third-party candidate may have no real shot at winning, but then, neither does Trump in California, or Biden in Alabama. The person who votes third-party or abstains may be trying to send an important signal about the direction our politics needs to go in the future—a signal that may not affect this election, but that will help shape the next one.

Whatever happens in November, it is unlikely to cause a national revival. However, the way that we approach November, the witness of faith and charity we offer an anxious world, could plant the seeds of the revival we so desperately need.

I’m Brad Littlejohn.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: The state of Missouri considers putting into the law a biological definition of male and female. We’ll talk to an expert witness about why that’s so important.

And, Covid brought adoption of Chinese children to a halt. We’ll hear about one adoptive family trying to bring a little girl home. 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 says: “[Yet] you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame.” —Psalm 22:3-5

Go now in grace and peace.

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