The World and Everything in It: January 25, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. Hi. My name is Susan Montgomery. I enjoy listening to The World and Everything in It in the morning as I get ready for my day. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Missouri considers defining male and female in state law. We’ll talk about it with a biologist.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Also, why some electric vehicles won’t start when it’s cold out.

AUDIO: We do have to consider the cold as a factor because we do know it—it's going to take away some percentage of the battery.

And, a pastor serving soldiers in a war zone.

AUDIO: Nobody was organized—not the army, not the country. It catched us by surprise. So food was needed. Soldiers were hungry.

And WORLD commentator Cal Thomas on the Supreme Court’s decision not to intervene on the Texas border dispute.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, January 25th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BROWN: And I’m Myrna Brown. Good morning!

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden campaign » On the heels of Donald Trump’s big win in New Hampshire, President Biden’s campaign leaders say they believe the Republican race is over.

RODRIGUEZ: And the election-denying, anti-freedom MAGA movement has completed its takeover of the Republican party.

Biden Campaign Manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez heard there. And Deputy Campaign Manager Quentin Fulks added that it’s time to focus on November.

FULKS: Just looking at the reality of the data in front of us, right? We’ve been prepared for this since the launch of this reelection in April of last year.

President Biden is now looking to rally his base, speaking Wednesday at a United Auto Workers union conference in Washington.

BIDEN: It’s great to be home! One of the best unions in the world!

UAW President Shawn Fain declared that the union is again endorsing Biden.

Trump and Haley campaigns » For his part, Donald Trump is also focused largely on November, taking regular jabs at Biden.

TRUMP: If you took the 10 worst presidents and put them together, they would not have done the damage that crooked Joe Biden has done.

But while Biden and Trump may be gearing up for a rematch, Nikki Haley says the GOP primary race is far from over.

She’s campaigning in her home state of South Carolina where she was twice elected governor. She touted her record last night in North Charleston.

HALEY: We moved 35,000 people from welfare to work. (cheers)

Despite her deep roots in the state, the poll numbers there suggest Trump enjoys a comfortable lead at the moment.

Border » And speaking of polls, immigration is now the top concern on the minds of voters, surpassing even inflation. That’s according to a new Harvard-Harris survey of well over 2,000 registered voters.

A bipartisan group of senators is negotiating over a bill that would tighten immigration policies at the U.S.-Mexico border. Republicans have demanded that in exchange for approving more funds for aid to Ukraine.

President Biden says he’s open to changes on the border.

But Republican Sen. Mike Lee said Wednesday,

LEE: What should give us any reason to believe that the administration that, with existing law, doesn’t want to use the tools that it has already on the books today, will suddenly change course if he has access to new laws?

Lee was part of a group of Republican senators who addressed reporters on Capitol Hill.

They complained that GOP leader McConnell is leaving many rank-and-file Republicans out of the negotiations. And they expressed serious doubts that any forthcoming Senate bill would pass in the House.

Ohio trans protections for minors » State lawmakers in Ohio have overturned the governor’s veto of a bill that will protect minors from transgender procedures. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The Republican-led state Senate overrode GOP Governor Mike DeWine’s veto of the measure on a vote of 24 to 8.

The new law will ban transgender surgeries and cross-sex hormone therapies for anyone under the age of 18.

It also prohibits males from competing on girls or women’s sports teams from kindergarten through college.

The law is slated to take effect in April.

22 other states have already enacted laws protecting minors from transgender medical procedures.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Kirby on Iran-backed attacks » National Security Council spokesman John Kirby says the U.S. military is on high alert watching for more attacks by Iran-backed militants in the Middle East.

KIRBY: As the president has said, we’re not going to hesitate to take necessary action to protect our troops and our facilities, and we’ll stay vigilant going forward of course.

U.S. forces carried out airstrikes in Iraq on Tuesday, targeting facilities controlled by Iran’s proxy groups in the region.

That followed a missile attack by militants over the weekend that wounded four U.S. service members at an air base in Iraq. Just the latest of roughly 150 attacks on American troops in recent months.

Russia plane crash » Kirby also said the United States is looking into a deadly plane crash on Wednesday in western Russia. Officials in Moscow claim the transport plane was carrying 74 people, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war en route to the location of a prisoner exchange.

KIRBY: We’re obviously doing the best we can to try to get more clarity and more information on it.

The Kremlin claims Ukraine’s military shot down the plane. But it offered no evidence of that.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine would push for an international investigation of what happened “considering that the plane crash occurred on Russian territory beyond our control.”

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Getting back to basic biology in Missouri. Plus, The ministry of staying put in war time.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 25th of January, 2024.

This is WORLD Radio and we’re happy you’ve joined us today. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

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

First up on The World and Everything in It: defining biology in the law.

A quick word to parents, this story references material you may want to review before listening with kids nearby.

Last Thursday, legislators in Missouri heard testimony regarding a new bill. Here’s state representative, Adam Schnelting.

SCHNELTING: Now, House Bill 2309 is the Defining SEX Act. This legislation is a needed attempt to ensure there's no ambiguity in our state law regarding sex…It's incumbent upon us to ensure that our laws reflect a stable legal category for something as, as basic as sex.

REICHARD: Ever since the Supreme Court’s Bostock decision in 2020, the legal definition of sex has been in question. Does the term refer only to a biological reality, or does it include subjective perceptions of it? What about sexual orientation? And should doctors be allowed to perform procedures on children to change their appearance and hormone levels?

BROWN: It’s a contentious debate…and joining us now to talk about it is a man who’s served as an expert witness for several states seeking to clarify the issue.

Colin Wright is an evolutionary biologist who left academia in 2020 after standing up for the fact that sex is not a spectrum and there are only two biological sexes.

He’s Founding Editor of the Substack called Reality’s Last Stand, and serves as a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

REICHARD: Colin, good morning.

COLIN WRIGHT: Good morning. And thank you for having me on.

REICHARD: So, Colin, how would you define sex in a way that clarifies biological reality?

WRIGHT: Yes, so it's important to define sex in a way that's very broad. You know, a lot of medical institutions are very myopic in the way that they define sex or where they treat it, because they're just, you know, treating humans and they're trying to diagnose diseases. And so they tend to look at things like, Oh, we're gonna look at chromosomes, we're gonna look at their hormones, we're gonna look at their, you know, their genital shape, and all these things that they have. And they're certainly related. But broadly speaking, males and females are defined by a type of reproductive strategy that is producing either small gametes or sperm, or large gametes or ova, so sperm and eggs. So this is universally how animals individuals are defined as male and female across the plant and animal kingdoms. And it's important to maintain that that is also true for humans, because we are also animals that are no exception to this rule. So broadly speaking, I would classify human males and females as those having the primary reproductive anatomy that's organized around producing either sperm or ova, because it's all about reproduction.

REICHARD: What is the most worrisome argument you are responding to when it comes to biological sex?

WRIGHT: The most worrisome ones are the coming from the medical doctors, the ones who are doing gender medicine. And this is because they have this bizarre view of biological sex as not pertaining to entire bodies, but you can only describe sex as a trait by trait basis. So you would not say that David is a male or Susan is a female, they would say that David has male appearing genitals, has male chromosomes has male hormone levels, those types of things. This is used as a justification to say that you can have a child or anyone for that matter who might have you know, all of the traits, the secondary sex traits we associate with being male or female, but maybe that their brain sex is different from their body. And if that's the case, well, for one, brain sex is a completely pseudo-scientific concept. But if that's the case, if you can have this mismatch between your brain sex and then all your other, you know, sex-related characteristics, then we can, by the use of hormones and surgeries, correct your body change all of your secondary sex characteristics, your physical traits, to sort of be in alignment with your brain. This is the justification that's being used in order to do these types of innervations on children. But you cannot actually change your sex. What actually matters in medicine, if you can actually literally change your sex or if you're just making cosmetic changes. And so it really matters to get the actual natural biology right on this issue, because this forms the premise of performing these interventions on children.

REICHARD: In a further twist, folks on the far Left who oppose laws protecting children from these so-called sex-change procedures have embraced limited government. They say the politicians should stay out of decisions made between doctors and parents. Colin, why do you think it’s important for elected leaders to take the lead on laws like the Defining SEX Act in Missouri?

WRIGHT: It's important for leaders to step in because, frankly speaking, our medical institutions have been captured by this ideology where they're not actually using evidence to make their proclamations about these types of procedures. All of the other countries in the world who have performed systematic reviews of the evidence for the efficacy of these you know, hormonal gender affirming care, surgery interventions, Norway, Sweden, the UK, these are not, you know, super conservative areas. These are in many ways used as models for super liberal societies and very progressive. They've all done these systematic reviews, which is the highest amount of evidence you can possibly have, because it takes into account all of the evidence on all the studies and ranks them by how rigorous they are. They've all concluded that the evidence for the efficacy of these procedures, especially in children is very poor or nonexistent, and relies on very short term outcomes, that type of thing. So unfortunately, we do need to step in and sort of rescue it from that type of ideological capture.

REICHARD: Is there some part of this story that you think deserves more attention than what media are giving it?

WRIGHT: I think there needs to be a lot more attention put onto the actual biology side of things. You know, coming from a biologist, that might make sense. But a lot of the debates really focused on you know, is a trans woman a woman, what is a woman, all this type of stuff. And what I've been trying to really focus on for the last five years, is the fact that the foundation for all of this is this attempt to undermine the biological reality of male and female as discrete biological categories in nature. Once that goes, once you get rid of this separation, then anything goes from there. If we relinquish control of this aspect of reality, which is fundamental to who we are as a species, and as a fundamental concept in biology, there is just nothing left that they can't distort completely and turn on its head. So we need to get back to the basic principles, rather than talking about sort of, is gender affirming care, what's the evidence for that? Well, the entire premise for it is based on pseudoscience, and I think we need to really attack at the root of the problem, rather than the studies with whether the sex change procedures gives people short or long term benefits for kids.

REICHARD: Colin Wright is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and founding editor of Reality’s Last Stand. Colin, thanks so much!

WRIGHT: Thank you. Appreciate it.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: electric vehicles in the cold.

As severe weather swept the United States last week, electric vehicle owners in Chicago faced a harsh reality.

WGN NEWS: Sub-zero temperatures apparently draining Tesla’s electric car batteries faster.

FOX 32 CHICAGO: Public charging stations-turned car graveyards over the past couple of days.

FOX 32 CHICAGO: We got a bunch of dead robots out here.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: With a low temperature of negative nine degrees, not including windchill, EVs were losing charge faster, and taking longer to recharge. Even worse, charging stations were going kaput too, leaving some drivers stranded even as they waited in line for a charger.

BROWN: So what happened in Chicago, and is it a problem for EV drivers in other cold places? WORLD Radio’s Mary Muncy has the story.

MARY MUNCY: While Chicago EV drivers tried to figure out what to do with their dead cars. Mark Hurd and his family were road-tripping from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Tampa, Florida in their Tesla Model Y. They were supposed to fly down to meet their cruise ship, but their flights were canceled because of a storm.

MARK HURD: We didn't anticipate that we were going to be driving my Tesla or anything like that. So I didn't have it to 100 percent charged.

They stopped to charge the Tesla in Kentucky where it was negative 6 degrees.

HURD: We did have to stop and charge more often. We probably lost about 20 percent—meaning we used probably 20 percent more energy than normal.

A study released this month by Recurrent Auto analyzed 18 EV models and found that cold weather reduced range by an average of about 30 percent. That’s mostly because turning the heat up in the car makes the battery work harder, and the battery chemistry is also less efficient in freezing conditions.

But even with sub-zero temperatures, the Hurds didn’t have any trouble finding a charging station that worked when they needed it, even with the reduced range, and they made it to their cruise ship on time.

So what was different for EV drivers in Chicago?

Kyle Conner reviews EVs with Out of Spec Studios and posted a video from Chicago on his channel last week,  right after the cold snap.

KYLE CONNER: I thought we were going to charge up Merchy’s very cool Mustang Mach-E but you will notice this charger shows, unavailable. And then if you come over here this is another charger completely unavailable. Which means only one DC fast charger is working at this site.

Drivers in the area reported waiting for hours for a charger because many were broken. The problem was compounded by more people using the chargers for longer. The cars need time to warm up before they can take a charge, and since EVs lose charge faster in the cold, more people needed more electricity.

Another problem in Chicago is that many Uber and Lyft drivers rent EVs for their jobs, and unlike an owner, they usually don’t have a charging station at home.

But while Chicago got the most news coverage, Conner also found that about half of the chargers at a station in his home state of Colorado weren’t working during the cold snap either. He says temperatures there got down between negative 10 to negative 15 degrees which is warm compared to the negative 35 degrees he’s experienced there in the past with no problems.

CONNER: Very rarely do I have issues with Tesla charging, you guys know that I’ve been in way colder environments than this up in Canada in the middle of winter with no issues maybe it had to do with the wind, with the placement, maybe owners leaving them on the ground. Ultimately, we are able to charge, which is good.

But even at that station in Colorado, with only a fraction of the chargers working, drivers weren’t lined up waiting for a charger.

So what went wrong in Chicago?

Diana Furchtgott-Roth is the Director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment with the Heritage Foundation.

She says the problems in Chicago have less to do with EV technology, and more to do with Chicago’s infrastructure.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: In the United States, the quality of charging stations is very much dependent right now on the municipal government, or the state government, and Illinois just does not rank very high in the provision of services in anything.

Furchtgott-Roth pointed to Indiana which has similar temperatures to Illinois but did not have the same issues. Other countries like Norway and Canada use EVs in cold weather that lasts most of the year and they are not reporting those issues either.

FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: When you leave something up to your state government, then you depend on the quality of your state government.

Some Americans seem to be factoring in cold weather when they consider buying an EV. But 2022 data from the US Department of Energy shows the states with the highest percentages of EVs aren’t necessarily the warmest.

Colin Priest lives in New York, an hour and a half outside of New York City. He and his wife both have Teslas. His wife works part-time and her commute is about an hour each way.

COLIN PRIEST: We do have to consider the cold as a factor because we do know it—it's going to take away some percentage of the battery. So we just charge more. So in the summer, maybe 80% would get her there and back. But during the winter, we'll do 95 to 100.

Even though cold does affect an EV's battery life and charging speed, Priest says it just takes a little bit of planning to avoid any inconvenience.

He has a shorter commute and a charger at his work, so for himself, Priest only factors in the cold as far as heating up the car in the morning, which saves the battery and his fingers.

PRIEST: Even if I forgot for whatever reason one morning, I'll just be cold and uncomfortable driving to work is basically what's going to happen. And the battery I guess, will get a little mad at me that one time, but that's it.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: A team of scientists in the United States recently beamed a message to a distant solar system. Sound from the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau.

AUDIO: Lexington, KY, just beamed the first interstellar travel ad into outer space.

That’s right, the town known for horses, bourbon, and Kentucky basketball wants aliens to visit.

AUDIO: The message contains a bitmap key with prime numbers, plus horses and Lexington's iconic bluegrass landscape.

City leaders got permission from the federal government to use an infrared laser to send the message to a solar system 40 light years away.

That means it’ll take 80 years to find out if life somewhere out there sees the message, understands it, and wants to book a trip.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Someone posted online: Aliens are already here - google Walmartians!

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

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, January 25th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Daily bread in a war zone.

Israel’s war against Hamas is now in its fourth month. And more than 250,000 Israelis have evacuated their homes because of repeated rocket attacks.

REICHARD: Most of the evacuation zone lies near the Gaza Strip where Hamas killed 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostage. Israel also evacuated more than 40 cities and villages in northern Israel. Hezbollah fires rockets into Israel from just across the border.

BROWN: But some Israelis decided to stay put.

WORLD correspondent Jill Nelson was in Israel in December. She brings us this story about a ministry to soldiers on the frontlines.

AUDIO: [Sound from kitchen]

JILL NELSON, REPORTER: It’s almost meal delivery time at Congregation Kiryat Shmona. Pastor Israel Iluz carries a large pot of food from the church’s kitchen to a long table. Three women in aprons help dish the food into containers.

Today’s menu is ground beef, vegetables and rice. Iluz’s 21-year-old daughter Gabi sings as she tallies the last crate of meals.

Around a dozen of the church’s members ignored Israel’s call to evacuate Kiryat Shmona after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. Iluz says they decided to stay and convert his son’s new restaurant into a ministry.

ILUZ: We took it as a church project to feed the soldiers. Today, between 300 and 500 dishes every day.

The Israeli army engages almost daily in skirmishes with Hezbollah across the border in Lebanon. The country wasn’t prepared for the surge of soldiers called up when Hezbollah increased its rocket attacks after Oct. 7.

ILUZ: Nobody was organized—not the army, not the country. It catched us by surprise. So food was needed. Soldiers were hungry.

The church has a bomb shelter, and so do most homes. Israel’s Iron Dome defense system shoots down most of Hezbollah’s rockets, but some get through.

On his way to deliver meals, Iluz stops at one place where the Iron Dome failed. It’s just up the street from his home.

ILUZ: This is where the rocket hit. Obviously this one got totally burned.

He points to an incinerated car.

Iluz shares his faith journey as he continues to drive. He grew up in an orthodox Jewish family. His father was a rabbi and Iluz attended a religious school.

He decided to move from Israel to South Africa in 1991 when he was 28 years old. During his first few years abroad, he crossed paths with one Christian after another.

ILUZ: And everybody’s talking to me about Jesus. And somebody gave me a New Testament in Hebrew, and that's kind of, okay, I'll take it. Because it was a guy that I wanted to do business with, so okay I'll take it.

He didn’t touch the Bible for months. But eventually Iluz became curious. He associated Christians with the Holocaust.

ILUZ: I wonder why they hate us so much, those Christians. Where is this hatred come from? And then I start to read, and for my surprise, I see Jewish name, Jewish places. I grew up in the Galilee. I know the Galilee. And slowly I start to ask questions.

He took those questions to a Jewish rabbi in South Africa.

ILUZ: Can it be that we missed the messiah of Israel? I said to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, can it be that Yeshua is the messiah? Show me.

One day in 1996, he prayed and asked the God of Israel to reveal himself. Suddenly, the prophecies made sense and he saw beauty in creation. Iluz says the Bible came alive after his conversion.

He moved back home 17 years later to do ministry in Israel.

He has a quiet confidence as we drive closer to enemy territory. Even when we hear Israeli tanks firing.

The guards at the first base turn us away. It’s too risky to deliver meals at this location up in the foothills. Iluz says Hezbollah forces are just over the hill.

ILUZ: Actually yesterday and today, there was a lot of rockets Hezbollah started shooting even more, further and even to civilians they are shooting.

But the next three bases are in safer territory. He unloads boxes of meals, and some of the soldiers break open the containers and begin to eat. They gather around folding tables, tanks parked nearby.

AUDIO: [Soldiers saying thank you in Hebrew and English]

One of the soldiers shares his gratitude.

SOLDIER: It really helps us because it’s a bit tense here. We don’t see our homes much and now with the winter, it’s very nice to get some warm food and support.

Iluz says most residents of Kiryat Shmona won’t return home until Hezbollah’s bases have been dismantled. The Iranian-backed terrorist group has threatened to carry out an attack similar to Hamas’. Like Hamas, they’ve built a network of tunnels stretching across Israel’s border with Lebanon.

AUDIO: [Sounds from kitchen]

But the church’s ministry continues. Iluz says they’ve found purpose serving others during a time of war.

ILUZ: And I praise God, instead of worrying about what’s going on, we are busy giving as Jesus basically did. You know he fed the multitudes. And I think this is our job.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jill Nelson in Kiryat Shmona, Israel.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, January 25th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. On Monday, the Supreme Court weighed in on an emergency injunction involving razor wire at the southern border, but WORLD commentator Cal Thomas explains why that battle is far from over.

CAL THOMAS: The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that federal agents can cut razor wire installed along the Texas-Mexico border while a lawsuit over the wire continues. The vote was 5-4, with two conservative justices joining the three liberals in the majority opinion. The State of Texas had installed the wire as a deterrent to illegal immigration, and the head of the Border Patrol union spoke to reporters in favor of the installation, but that apparently doesn’t matter to the court.

The emergency appeal of a lower court ruling didn’t require the justices to give an explanation for their votes. But it’s likely the majority voted against Texas because they felt the Constitution grants power to the federal government over individual states when it comes to border control. The obvious question, which the court did not address: why is the federal government not enforcing immigration laws which migrants are breaking to enter the country?

Suppose a Mexican army–no, forget an army–suppose a ragtag bunch of drug dealers decided to invade Texas, and the governor acted to stop them including installing more razor wire. Then suppose the Biden administration did nothing to stop them? Would the court be OK with that? The effect is the same as if an army of any kind was crossing the border.

A statement from White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez is laughable: “Texas’ political stunts, like placing razor wire near the border, simply makes it harder and more dangerous for frontline personnel to do their jobs.” Except, as anyone can plainly see in pictures of thousands of migrants streaming across the border, frontline personnel are not doing their jobs because the Biden administration won’t let them.

After months of denial, President Biden recently stated the obvious when he said that the border is not secure. If his previous statements weren’t lies, we need a new definition of that word.

Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott said in response to the court ruling that the razor wire is an “effective deterrent” to the illegal crossings and “I will continue to defend Texas’ constitutional authority to secure the border.” Local police and Texas Department of Public Safety officers have been arresting migrants on trespassing charges, but many migrants will be handled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement which is likely to continue releasing them into the country.

That this already is a major issue in this year’s presidential race is clear. According to a new Harvard CAPS-Harris poll “More voters pointed to immigration than to inflation as a top policy concern. The survey found that 35 percent of respondents listed immigration as their paramount concern among an array of issues, with inflation in a close second, named by 32 percent of respondents.”

Beware Democrats. You are on the wrong side of this issue.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet joins us for Culture Friday. And, your Listener Feedback. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

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

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: “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’” —Mark 1:9-11

Go now in grace and peace.

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