The World and Everything in It - July 21, 2022

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Older Americans who retired early under Covid restrictions are coming back to work. And it’s not just because of inflation.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Also the “ninja” variant of Covid is causing a spike in illnesses. We’ll talk about it.

Plus, biking across Burundi for a good cause.

And commentary from Cal Thomas.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, July 21st. 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: Now news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Zelenska Congress address » The first lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, stood at a podium at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday…

ZELENSKA: Good morning … Dear members of the U.S. Congress … 

Zelenska pressed her country’s appeal for more air defense systems and she did not spare lawmakers the horror her people have seen at home. She punctuated her remarks with images of blood-stained baby strollers and small crumpled bodies in city streets.

ZELENSKA: We want every father and every mother to be able to tell their child, ‘go to sleep peacefully. There will be no more airstrikes.’

Zelenska also shared names and told the personal stories of many victims of Russian attacks. And she thanked the United States for its support as she appealed for more weapons and defenses.

Her address followed a meeting at the White House one day earlier.

Her husband, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, addressed Congress by video earlier this year.

Pentagon: U.S. committed to backing Ukraine » A short time later at the Pentagon, top U.S. defense officials said they’re committed to making sure Ukraine has the weapons it needs. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin …

AUSTIN: As you know, we’ve provided the Ukrainians with 12 HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems to further strengthen their long-range fires capability. And I think that everyone here understands the difference that they’ve made on the ground.

He said Washington is committed to sending at least four more HIMARS systems, along with other munitions and missile defense systems.

Austin also responded to reports that Iran may supply Russia with drones and other munitions to wage war in Ukraine.

AUSTIN: We would advise Iran to not do that. We think it’s a really, really bad idea, and I’ll leave that at that.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said despite Russia’s concentrated attacks in the eastern Donbas region, that battle is not lost.

MILLEY: The Ukrainians are making the Russians pay for every inch of territory that they gain.

Russia expanding Ukraine war focus » But despite the high cost, the Kremlin is undeterred. And Moscow’s forces are expanding their offensive farther to the south, according to a top Russian official. WORLD’s Mary Muncy has more.

MARY MUNCY, REPORTER: Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Russian forces are expanding their “military operations.”

The Kremlin is stepping up attacks in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and other areas in the south.

In Russian-occupied Kherson, Ukrainian missiles hit a bridge Wednesday that Kyiv said was a crucial link in Russia’s military supply chain.

Russia has been operating a shadow government in Kherson for months. The White House is warning that Russia aims to formally annex more Ukrainian territory and could hold a “sham” election as soon as September.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

Texas wildfire » In Texas, firefighters are using bulldozers to dig trenches around nine square miles of burning flatland. As of Wednesday, the Chalk Mountain wildfire had burned more than 6,000 acres about 50 miles southwest of Ft. Worth.

Somervell County Commissioner Jeff Harris said as the flames spread, some ranchers have not had time to round up their livestock.

HARRIS: I talked to somebody who was just cutting fences at some point just to let stock out. Just hoping they could roam free and be gathered up later.

Firefighters last night only had the blaze about 10 percent contained, but officials said they were able to lift evacuation orders in nearby Hood County.

Extreme temperatures are helping to fuel the fire. And Americans are feeling the heat well beyond north Texas.

U.S. heat advisories » More than 100 million people in 20 states are under severe heat warnings or advisories. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: A heatwave is scorching a large path across the country. Dallas hit 107 degrees on Wednesday. And Boise, Idaho is expected to hit 102 today.

Roughly 80 percent of Americans will feel high temperatures in the 90s within the next week. And more than 60 million Americans could see temps of at least 100 degrees.

The heatwave is expected to shatter numerous local records.

That comes as records are also falling in Europe. Some parts of the continent are still feeling triple-digit heat.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Biden climate change / McConnell response » Seizing on surging temperatures, President Biden on Wednesday announced new steps he said are aimed at battling climate change.

BIDEN: Climate change is an emergency, and in the coming weeks, I’m going to use the power I have as president to turn these words into formal, official government action.

But he stopped short of declaring a formal climate emergency, something many Democrats have urged him to do.

The executive actions announced Wednesday will bolster the domestic offshore wind industry in the Gulf of Mexico and Southeast.

Biden blasted GOP lawmakers for not backing his climate change proposals. But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Democrats are pushing a “radical green” agenda.

MCCONNELL: They’re having trouble getting enough senators to agree to make the most reliable and abundant forms of energy more expensive for working Americans.

Biden also announced Wednesday that the federal government is sending nearly $400 million to states to help some people to buy air conditioners for their homes and to set up community cooling centers.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: why some retirees are scrapping their original plans.

Plus, biking across Burundi.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 21st of July, 2022.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

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

First up: Retirement. Mary, is that on your mind?

REICHARD: No, ma’am!

BROWN: Me, neither, but it is for a lot of people. An economist estimated that three million Americans retired early due to the pandemic.

REICHARD: But a survey in June found that almost 70 percent of people who retired during that time might return to the workforce. WORLD reporter Lauren Dunn looks at some of the reasons why.

LAUREN DUNN, REPORTER: Chris Cagle retired from an IT position at the age of 66, in late 2019. But most days, he is still hard at work.

CAGLE: I teach in my children's ministry, I lead a small group. I've done discipleship groups and Bible studies, I volunteer weekly at a food pantry. I've done some other numerous other community outreach things involving other churches in the area, as well as the work that I do, in support of the leadership of our church as a deacon. So I stay pretty busy.

Cagle says he loves the flexibility of retirement and is excited about a prolonged vacation he and his wife are planning for later this year.

CAGLE: We're going to take another trip to some of the national parks again, later this year, to celebrate our anniversary…

As inflation affects prices everywhere from the grocery store to the gas pump, some retirees are feeling the need to return to work. A ResumeBuilder.com survey found that 1 in 5 retirees said they were considering returning to work this year. And 70 percent of them named inflation as the reason.

The Senior Community Service Employment Program is a part of the National Council on Aging. The program provides job skills training to prepare senior adults for jobs at nonprofits. Maura Porcelli is the program’s senior director.

PORCELLI: We are seeing people who have been fully retired contacting us because they need to get back into the workforce, because their fixed income, which they had done a great deal of planning to think what they were going to need for the next, you know, decade or so or longer, they thought they had planned efficiently and any savings combined with Social Security was going to cover their costs.

And food and gas aren’t the only prices going up. Some Medicare premiums have increased by 14.5 percent, which translates to the biggest dollar increase the program has ever seen.

But financial need isn’t always why retirees choose to reenter the workforce.

PORCELLI: Retirees have always come out of retirement for different reasons. Some people will go back because they miss the engagement, they miss that satisfaction from a day's labor, from a day's work. Social isolation is a huge issue for older adults…

Ian Weinberg is the CEO of Family Wealth and Pension Management, a New York-based financial management firm that primarily works with high net worth clients. He says that while some of his clients have left retirement before, he thinks there will continue to be more interest in the idea.

WEINBERG: My retired executive clients, retired business owner clients, retired legal professionals, banking professionals, teaching professionals, they all started getting calls, hey, we need you, would you like to come back. And they were being offered part time positions or consulting positions at really good salaries or good wage rates, because so many employers couldn't get people back into the workforce.

But some of his clients who aren’t being asked to return have other reasons to go back to work. Some ran their own business for decades and don’t know how to fill their time without that consistency. Others find that being home full-time isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

WEINBERG: I think the other funny thing, it's anecdotal, some couples have never spent a lot of weekday time together, until one of the spouses is completely retired, where the other one is, has been retired. Now they're together, you know, 24/7, well, I see this happening where, hey, I need some space. And I can't play golf every day.

Cagle began blogging about retirement while he was still working in IT. He was concerned about people who weren’t as financially ready to retire as they thought they were, and he wanted to explore how Christians should think about retirement.

CAGLE: I want to encourage folks as they start thinking about retirement, to not just consider the financial component, which is very important. But this, you know, this kind of spiritual heart component, as well. And, and think about what in the world are we going to do all day? That was the first question my wife asked me.

Cagle has written three books about retirement, and for right now, plans to continue volunteering and working with his church.

CAGLE: I still feel like I have work to do.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lauren Dunn.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Up next: the so-called “ninja” variant of COVID-19.

COVID cases are rising steadily in the United States. New positives and new hospitalizations are at their highest levels in five months. And we have an especially tricky strain of the virus to blame for that.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: BA.5 is an offshoot of the omicron variant. It’s skilled at dodging your immune system, regardless of whether your immunity comes by way of a vaccine or prior infection. That’s why some are calling it the “ninja” variant.

And it is now the dominant strain in the United States.

Joining us now is Dr. Zach Jenkins. He’s a pharmacist who specializes in infectious diseases. He’s also a professor at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.

REICHARD: Good morning, professor!

ZACH JENKINS, GUEST: Good morning.

REICHARD: Well, first of all, how contagious is B-A-5 compared to the other strains?

JENKINS: Well, what I would say based on the data we have, it's about six times more infectious than the original strain of SARS COV-2. So if we rewind two years, and we think about how contagious it was then, this is certainly far more contagious. Now, some are likening it to being as contagious as the measles or worse. But largely, those claims may be a little exaggerated at this point. We don't have firm data on that. But it's still very infectious and that's an important thing to note.

REICHARD: Can you give us a simplified explanation of how this strain manages to evade immune defenses?

JENKINS: Yeah, so when we think about viral replication, what a virus really does when it enters into the body is it attaches to a host cell, and then essentially hijacks the machinery of the cell to make more of itself. It's almost like a robot. It's programmed to do that one specific thing. But just like if you were to print a bunch of things out at home, what happens if you're using a printer, sometimes you'll have printing errors. And with viruses that use RNA, like the coronaviruses, they're very fragile. They're very prone to errors in the replication process. And that's where mutations come from. Most of those mutations don't do very well for the virus attack. They tend to fade away and the viruses die. But on occasion, you get one that actually makes the virus more fit. And so when we think about evading host immunity, what's happened is these viruses have had those point mutations occur, where all of a sudden the antibodies you've generated from a previous infection, or maybe through vaccination, where you're guided towards specific kinds of structures, they're not recognizing those changes. And so that's how this evasion can really occur.

REICHARD: What are the most common symptoms of BA.5 and what is the risk of serious illness with this strain?

JENKINS: Both good questions. As far as symptom patterns go, I think most of us are very familiar with what we see—especially with the coronavirus in general. So we know that there have been a lot of flu-like symptoms. We know that early on especially some people were losing their sense of taste or smell, and even some people had intestinal disturbances. With BA.5 though what we're seeing more of is an increased incidence of sore throat, hoarseness, more congestion and sneezing and things. So it's a bit more common in that group. We're still seeing a lot of flu-like symptoms, but certainly more of those upper respiratory symptoms are more common. As far as severity goes, it really kind of depends on a few factors. So one of which is you know what a person's initial risk is going to be—if they are immunocompromised, or they're at the extremities of age, the very old or the very young, they're certainly at a high risk. When you think about people that have chronic diabetes, they're at a high risk. So all those things are big risks to consider. Another thing to think about though, is if they've had previous infection, how long ago matters. So if it was a long time ago, the antibodies may not be recognizing what's present now. And that could lead to infection and sometimes in especially those at risk people, they may end up with severe illness. What we do know—and this is the positive news—with each of these waves as more and more people are exposed, there seems to be a decrease in overall severity. And as we look at hospitalizations and the rate of those, it still is well behind where we were at when we think back to the worst part of the Delta variant, for example. So as people are getting more exposed, and the virus is actually worried more about transmitting itself and less about what kind of damage it does, the severity is actually decreasing.

REICHARD: Well, that is good news! I know that federal health agencies say that vaccines can still help to prevent severe illness, but as we’ve discussed here, it’s not preventing infection.

Do you think future booster shots help to protect against this and will matter? Or is this virus likely to keep mutating and staying one step ahead of us?

JENKINS: Correct. So, there are a few things to consider when we talk about just the mutations in general. When we think about the flu, we have a set path the flu usually goes down. It's been in circulation a long time. But with this being a novel virus where we weren't previously exposed to it prior to the start of the pandemic, there are a ton of people this can spread through. And so with all hat ability to spread, there are more chances for errors and mutations to happen, which can mean more variants. So that's where you see this accelerated rate of mutations. What's happened here is there are two primary pathways. There's the Omicron pathway, which is what's dominant now. It spreads really well, but causes overall less severe disease. And then there's the pathway that Delta was a part of. So what we could see in the wild at some point is some mutation or delta or some variant thereof, suddenly springs out and causes an issue down the road. What's happening now though, is because we're still basing a lot of our treatments, as well as our vaccines around the ancestral strain, the Wuhan strain we originally had, they're not necessarily catered to deal with the current variants at hand. So we're operating off of basically two and a half year old data. So in the future, especially for those at-risk groups, I think there's a real benefit towards having something that's more tailored to that, while protection against severe disease is still there. For the really at risk individuals, particularly those that don't have strong immune systems, I do think there's some benefit to having a vaccine product that can help

REICHARD: And want to back up a minute and talk about these subvariants. What does this mean exactly?

JENKINS: Yeah, so this is where things get really confusing. If we've been paying attention in the media, you've heard all the alphabet soup tossed around with all these different names and variants and it gets really confusing. The way I like to kind of liken it to is when you think about purchasing a car or describing a car you have—your make, your model, your year, and your edition of the car, right? So your make would be essentially the family of viruses. So what does this come from? You've heard monkeypox mentioned a lot in the media lately. That's from a family called orthopox. So when we think about the coronavirus, it has its own family it falls under, but the model is actually the specific virus and that's what this coronavirus is going to be. That's like the model of the virus, right? The year is what a variant would be. So that is a one particular version of that virus that was made that has very specific characteristics. What a subvariant is it's when there are slight alterations to those characteristics, but not enough to make it an entirely different vehicle. So, that'd be like a car edition. You know how there are sports editions and limited editions of cars. It's kind of like that. So, a subvariant has these little changes, but not enough to be completely different.

REICHARD: Zach Jenkins is a pharmacist and pharmacology professor at Cedarville University, a Christian college in Cedarville, Ohio. Zach, thanks so much for joining us today!

JENKINS: Thanks for having me.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: A second-grader is being hailed as a hero after saving the life of his classmate.

David Diaz Jr. age 7 noticed his friend was choking during lunch and sprang into action, performing the Heimlich maneuver on his classmate.

DIAZ: I was surprised. I didn’t know what to do, so I just did it.

Except he kind of did know what to do. He said he learned the maneuver by seeing it on a TV show about a doctor.

But when asked if he sees a future for himself in the medical field, he was lukewarm on the idea.

DIAZ: Not that much. I probably want to be like a basketball player. I just like watching TV shows.

Well, we’ll see. It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, July 21st. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: cycling for a cause.

Many people would have a hard time finding the African nation of Burundi on a map. It was once a single territory along with Rwanda to its north. Today, Burundi is one of the poorest countries in the world after civil war and genocide decimated the country.

BROWN: Earlier this year a missionary joined a cycling group and set out across Burundi to raise money and awareness for disabled soldiers.

Here’s WORLD Radio intern Grace Snell to tell the story.

GRACE SNELL, REPORTER: On May twenty-seventh, 2022, a strange sight greeted passersby.

KLEAGER: The people are running to the side of the road because, honestly, in the up country of Burundi, seeing a white person in spandex on a fancy bike is probably one of the most rare things that person thought they would ever see when they woke up that morning.

Brian Kleager is a former U.S. Army officer. He’s been to Burundi about twenty times over the past decade, but never like this.

Kleager’s joining five other riders—all Brits—on a seven-day, four-hundred-mile ride around the country. They’re doing it to raise money for various Christian ministries in Burundi. Kleager’s riding to support soldiers wounded in Burundi’s civil war, which ended in 2006.

Kleager first traveled to Burundi eleven years ago—hosting conferences and seminars for soldiers and police. An Army chaplain introduced him to one-hundred-fifty disabled soldiers living on government support in a motor pool.

KLEAGER: All the broken down vehicles are on one side of the motorpool and on the other side of the motorpool are the broken down soldiers and they just put them in this huge bay, you know there's over 100 cots with mosquito netting over them, they just had their little space, put stuff under their cot, and that was their life.

Kleager and some locals started a program to provide food, clothes, hospital rides and discipleship for the men.

His riding goal is to raise enough money to support the ministry for the next six to nine months.

He visited in December and joined his Burundian ministry partner–a man named Kiki–on a hospital visit. Bone-thin men lay in hot, dirty hospital bays waiting to recover.

KLEAGER: There was one guy and Kiki told me he had almost died the week before, but thankfully, God had saved him and he's still living. And if I'm honest, from a human, physical standpoint, I don't know what he has to live for. I mean, he lays in a bed in the poorest country in the world in deplorable conditions. And yet, when Kiki and his team come visit them and pray for them, God's still at work. He's still doing things in and through these guys in ways that I can't imagine.

But they can’t do the work without support. So that’s why he’s here–sweating in eighty-degree heat and riding around sixty-five miles a day. It’s taken four months of training and forty hours of travel just to reach the starting line. And the road isn’t getting any easier.

KLEAGER: There were some stretches of the road that were quite nice, but the majority of the stretches you always knew to be looking for a pothole, looking for a bump, there were sometimes sections of 50 to 300 feet that just no pavement so you're just kinda slowly working through gravel.

Biking is common in Burundi, but the rules of the road are different.

KLEAGER: Whenever the Burundian honks their horn that rider always moves to the side and the car doesn't even slow down, they just know they’re going to move over, and the car goes flying by.

Sometimes, Kleager rode with two or three of the other cyclists. Other times, he rode alone—praying as he went.

KLEAGER: During stretches you're talking with another rider. When you're going uphill the more fit person talks, when you're going downhill, you can't hear because the wind's blowing through your ears.

The team stopped at local ministries as they rode, including a training ministry for Burundian pastors. Three of the workers there hopped on old bikes and peddled along with them.

A support team of five Burundians drove the route with them to help with food, hotels, and social media coverage for supporters back home. Each day brought a new set of ups and downs as they worked through the Burundian hills.

KLEAGER: I think it was the end of day five, we had a couple-mile really steep climb. And so you really are just grinding. Sweat coming down out of your helmet. it's dripping down your eyes, so your eyes are stinging, you're going just a little bit faster than the Burundian who's walking and you're grinding your way. And you don't know where the top is. And so there's this kinda: "I gotta keep going, I don't know when it's gonna end."

One of the other riders got a flat tire at the top of the hill. Kleager rode a quarter mile back down to signal the support vehicle. Then, he got left behind and had to wander through a busy marketplace to find their hotel.

At night, the team circled up and shared personal stories. In the mornings, they geared up and hit the road again.

The team spent their final night at an orphanage. There was no water for showers, so they started their last day already sweaty.

The last twenty-five minutes of the ride were all downhill. The bikers rounded a corner and the valley opened with a view of Lake Tanganyika.

Their support team staged a finish for them outside the city.

KLEAGER: We tied the balloons to the back of the bike because we had a couple more kilometers just to get down to the edge of the city. so we're riding down now with balloons behind our bikes and they're kinda popping…

For his part, Kleager raised over $5,000. Twenty-two different donors supported his ride. The trek may be over, but Kleager’s time in Burundi is not.

KLEAGER: I keep going back because the needs are so deep and the people we're working with are doing such fruitful ministries. I can't not go to Burundi, like, I love the people there so deeply, Until God releases me from the call of connecting and loving and serving and partnering with people in Burundi, I'll keep going to Burundi.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Grace Snell.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, July 21st. 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. Commentator Cal Thomas now on rushing to judgment and questions that demand answers.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, pro-choice activists and their media allies have been on a campaign—trying to influence public opinion that the decision was a mistake.

They apparently believed they had discovered an ideal case. The Indianapolis Star reports that a 10-year-old rape victim who lives in Ohio went to Indiana for an abortion. Reportedly because Ohio’s new abortion restrictions didn’t allow her to have one there. Like many other rush-to-judgment stories, this was untrue. There is a medical emergency exception in Ohio—though it’s uncertain how it would even have been applied in this case.

No one could initially confirm the accuracy of the rape story. There was no police report. Ohio’s attorney general said he had heard nothing. Though Columbus police did receive a report on the rape from a local children’s services department in late June, no Ohio hospital reported treating the girl. Even Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler said he was skeptical about the case.

When details emerged proving the story true, there seemed to be less enthusiasm as to its usefulness to the pro-choice side. That’s because, according to ICE, the alleged rapist, 27-year-old Gerson Fuentes of Guatemala, entered the country illegally.

There are many questions about this case reporters should be asking.

First among them is how did Fuentes get to Ohio? And when did he arrive? Was he brought to the state on one of the Biden administration’s late-night flights that are distributing immigrants across the country?

Second, did Fuentes have a criminal record and was he a known sex offender?

Third, where did the alleged assaults occur? Police say Fuentes has admitted to raping the victim twice. If the rapes occurred in the girl’s home, where was her mother? Did she fail to exercise parental oversight? Did the assaults occur on different days?

Fourth, did the girl tell her mother about either incident? If she did, why didn’t her mother call the police and have Fuentes arrested? Police say she eventually called them. After the first assault, or the second? In a bizarre twist, the girl’s mother has denied the charges against Fuentes, even though police say he confessed.

Fifth, was Fuentes living with the girl’s mother as her boyfriend? If not, how did they meet? Where was the girl’s father?

There is a legal maxim that says hard cases make for bad law. It means an extreme case, such as this one, is a “poor basis for a general law that would cover a wider range of less extreme cases. In other words, a general law is better drafted for the average circumstance.”

No young girl – or grown woman - should be sexually assaulted. Those who are convicted of such a crime should suffer the strongest penalties and be registered as sex offenders.

The 10-year-old girl deserves compassion, counseling and help in overcoming this double trauma. But authorities must answer the difficult questions raised earlier. The results of their investigation should be released to the public, which now has what appears to be incomplete information behind this tragedy.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: On tomorrow’s program: A special Culture Friday with John Stonestreet and Andrew Walker.

And, Word Play with George Grant.

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: Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:6-7 ESV)

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.