The World and Everything in It: July 24, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is brought to you by new listeners like me. My name is Sally from Whitinsville, Massachusetts, and my son Richard and I would like to thank Pastor Michael Ives of the Presbyterian Reformed Church in Rhode Island for introducing us to the WORLD world. We hope you enjoy today's show.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Religious persecution is on the uptick around the world, including arrests for thought crimes.

AUDIO: She was arrested on the basis of her statement to the arresting officer that she might be praying inside her head.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Legal Docket.

Also the Monday Moneybeat. It’s earnings season. Today, David Bahnsen on what’s going on in the real economy.

And, the WORLD History Book. Seventy years ago this week, the Korean armistice.

AUDIO: At long last, the misery and the bloodshed of the war in Korea has been halted. Let's hope indeed that it's been ended. 

REICHARD: It’s Monday, July 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. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Republicans on FBI Hunter Biden query » On Capitol Hill, Republicans say evidence of Biden family corruption keeps piling up and may call for more serious action.

Congressman Jim Jordan on Fox’s Sunday Morning Futures.

JORDAN: Speaker McCarthy said if we have to go to an impeachment inquiry, we will, in fact, do that. Based on what Senator Grassley released this week with the 1023 form, what we heard from whistleblowers this past week, and the conflicting statements from the Justice Department, it sure looks like we’re moving in that direction at a pretty quick pace.

Last week, Senator Chuck Grassley released an FBI tip form alleging that the Ukrainian gas company Burisma paid Hunter Biden and his father, President Joe Biden, to influence U.S. policy toward Ukraine.

Democrats say previous investigations debunked those claims. But Republicans question whether the Justice Department did its due diligence. Recent whistleblower testimony stated the DOJ took steps to protect Hunter Biden during an IRS probe.

Congresswoman Kat Cammack:

CAMMACK: So why was he cut such a sweetheart deal on both the gun charge as well as the tax charges? I mean, that right there proves that if your last name is Biden, you are subject to an entirely separate set of rules and laws.

Hunter Biden is scheduled to appear in court this week to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax charges as part of a deal with federal prosecutors.

DOJ suit threat over Texas floating barrier » The Justice Department is threatening to sue the Texas after state officials placed a floating barrier in the Rio Grande to discourage migrants from crossing the river.

The Biden administration says the barrier raises humanitarian concerns. Texas GOP Congressman Tony Gonzalez said Sunday:

GONZALEZ: The border crisis has been anything but humane. I think you’re seeing the the governor do everything he possibly can to secure the border, but you have this states vs central government non-stop going back and forth.

The Biden administration says the floating barrier near the border town of Eagle Pass presents an “unlawful” hazard.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott stated on Twitter that—in his words, “Texas has the sovereign authority to defend our border.”

Presidential politics » And speaking of border security, former President Donald Trump over the weekend revisited what was a major theme of his 2016 campaign.

TRUMP: We’re going to close the border. We’re going to get rid of all the criminals that have been allowed to come into our country that are causing us tremendous problems, and terrorists that are going to cause problems for many years to come.

Meantime, Republican presidential rival Vivek Ramaswamy told Fox News that he’s gone from a largely unknown candidate to a primetime contender.

RAMASWAMY: I began in March at 0.0% in the polls. Look at the national polling averages now — I’m consistently polling at third nationally.

The longtime businessman and political newcomer is still running a somewhat distant third at 6%.

Trump still tops all rivals at roughly 50%.

Florida InBev probe » Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is still in second place in GOP polls with 20% support.

Over the weekend, he said his state may soon launch an investigation of Bud Light’s parent Company Anheuser Busch InBev.

He said Florida pensioners took a big hit when the company’s stock tanked.

DESANTIS: We had over $50 million dollars worth of InBev stock. When you start pursuing a political agenda at the expense of your shareholders, it impacts hardworking people who were police, firefighters, and teachers.

DeSantis says InBev may have “breached legal duties to shareholders when it partnered with a transgender social media star. Amid the backlash, the company lost billions of dollars in market value.

Ukraine » Russian forces again struck the city of Odesa on Sunday … along Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking Ukrainian]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow’s military used 19 missiles of different types to make them harder to shoot down.

He said at least one person was killed and 20 others were wounded, including four children.

The airstrike damaged nearly 50 buildings, including 25 landmarks across the city. The historic Transfiguration Cathedral was among them.

After the fires were put out at the Orthodox cathedral, volunteers donned hard hats, shovels and brooms… and began working to salvage artifacts amid the rubble and shattered glass.

SOUND: [Cathedral sounds]

One church leader said while busting into tears, “with God’s help, we will restore it.”

Netanyahu / protests » Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is recovering from an emergency heart procedure as protests rage in his country over his plan to overhaul the courts.

SOUND: [Israel protest]

Parliament is set to vote today on the plan, which would give legislators veto power over Supreme Court decisions, among other changes.

Netanyahu had a pacemaker implanted over the weekend and was expected to recover.

He recorded a video from his hospital room promising to attend today’s vote in person.

I'm Kent Covington. 

Straight ahead: Religious liberty cases around the world on Legal Docket. Plus, finding the shipwreck of the Titanic.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today: international cases of interest. And for that, legal correspondent Jenny Rough is here to help us out.

Good morning, Jenny!

JENNY ROUGH, REPORTER: Hi, Mary and Nick. Good morning!

So I started by checking in with a specialist in international cases: a lawyer by the name of Elyssa Koren. She’s with Alliance Defending Freedom International.

To hear her tell it: The global casework is very different from what we’re used to in the U.S.

ELYSSA KOREN: Human rights abuse. Human rights abuse is one of the great mysteries I think of any age. It's not unique to the modern age. But it’s a power quest, ultimately.

The Republic of India is one of many places currently experiencing a human-rights abuse crisis. That might not be the first country that jumps to mind. After all, India’s constitution provides the freedom for all individuals to profess and practice their religion.

But...

KOREN: One of the most insidious things that you see in India is anti-conversion laws, where essentially it's very, very difficult for people to convert. You have to jump through tremendous hurdles in order to choose and change your faith.

Almost a dozen of India’s 28 states have passed these anti-conversion laws.

An individual who tells another person about who Christ is and what Christ has done can be found guilty of a crime.

KOREN: So you could be guilty of falsely inducing someone into converting to the Christian faith by inviting them to a Sunday service, or just inviting them over to your house and telling them about Jesus or saying prayers with them.

REICHARD: Manipur is a state in the northeast of India. It has no anti-conversion law yet, but there is a push to bring one in. And recently, an ongoing conflict between two ethnic tribes has escalated into violence, arson, and death.

The conflict is a land ownership dispute between a largely Hindu tribe and a predominantly Christian one. The Christian minority faces grave hostility.

The European Parliament in its plenary session earlier this month, drew attention to the crisis. Here’s German member Sven Simon.

SVEN SIMON: [Speaking native language] Since May over 120 people were killed. Over 50,000 people are fleeing. Over 250 churches, theological institutions, Christian schools and hospitals have been burnt down.

Last week a video surfaced of a mob committing an unspeakably degrading and violent attack on two women from the Christian tribe. They were both stripped of their clothing and forced to walk along the streets where they were both molested. One of them was sexually assaulted by the mob.

ROUGH: The human atrocities continue with another radical mob agenda that has taken over parts of India. Hindutva which is different from Hinduism. It’s a political ideology that holds citizens aren’t fully, authentically Indian unless they ascribe to the national faith.

KOREN: Christians are persecuted. Any religious minority in India right now is under threat, threat to speak their beliefs, threat to carry on their life and their livelihoods.

ADF’s ally lawyers are working in-country to try to reverse these trends.

EICHER: Religious persecution is also happening in Nigeria. Yahaya Sharif-Aminu is a young Sufi musician who posted lyrics to one of his songs on WhatsApp.

KOREN: He was convicted of blasphemy for the crime of essentially sharing on WhatsApp, the messaging platform, WhatsApp lyrics that were deemed blasphemous toward the prophet Mohammed.

He sent the lyrics to a closed group of friends.

KOREN: Within a matter of hours that boy's note had circulated, and a mob found out about it. They congregated, they assembled at his house, they burnt down his childhood home, and he was arrested, convicted of blasphemy without a lawyer. So he was sentenced to die by hanging.

Like Nigeria, seven other countries’ blasphemy laws carry the death penalty with about 80, eight-zero, countries that have blasphemy laws on the books.

Sharif-Aminu appealed his case and the Supreme Court of Nigeria will hear it, but he’s still awaiting a date.

KOREN: And so what this case has the potential to do is to challenge the entire blasphemy structure and to say. You can't punish people for peacefully expressing their faith. You can't kill people for peacefully expressing their faith.

REICHARD: About four years ago, in 2019, WORLD reported on a case of a Christian homeschooling family in Germany: The Wunderlich family.

Homeschooling remains illegal in Germany.

KOREN: Their children were essentially taken away from them by the state, because of how dare they home educate their children.

Here’s the dad, Dirk Wunderlich, speaking to ADF in 2019:

DIRK WUNDERLICH: The authorities came here, 40 authorities, 40 persons, and took away our children, out of our home, and brought them into a foster home to school them.

The children were returned to the family, but when their case came before the European Court of Human Rights, the court affirmed the rights of the state. And an appeals court denied their appeal. The family has since left Germany.

ROUGH: Homeschooling refugees. And the legal battles over education in Germany continue. Like this current one about a Christian hybrid-school provider.

KOREN: The kids go to school some days, they stay home other days, they have a curriculum. They have good GPAs. So all the metrics are being fulfilled. They're following state criteria. And the state has essentially refused to accredit them, which will result in them not being able to function. And so we are taking this case to the court as well.

Arguing that the restrictions violate international and national law that parents are the first authority for their child’s education.

EICHER: Finally, thought crimes. In modern-day England, it’s now against the law to pray silently near an abortion facility.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce is a pro-life volunteer who helps women in crisis pregnancies.

KOREN: Her case was very interesting because she was praying within what the authorities termed a buffer zone, which is essentially a football field sized censorship zone around the facility where you're prohibited from doing a list of things.

Like praying silently.

Vaughan-Spruce thought she could avoid an accusation of harassment, by waiting until the facility was closed, standing before it, and praying. That didn’t work.

KOREN: She was arrested on the basis of her statement to the arresting officer that she might be praying inside her head.

Abortion opponents have different reasons for their opposition. In the case of Adam Smith-Connor, he paid for an abortion for his ex-girlfriend. And he regrets it now.

So, he, too, wants to offer silent prayer. And like Vaughan-Spruce, he did.

A policewoman questioned him.

KOREN: And he said, I'm praying for my son who died. And you can see in the footage, you can see a look of sympathy and remorse on her face. And then he says, from abortion. And then it just kicks off the whole process again where they're like, oh, brother, okay. This guy's violating the zone.

ROUGH: He was arrested not for the act, necessarily, but for his state of mind.

KOREN: Because it's not the fact that you're standing in that zone and praying, it's what you're praying about. It's literally going into people's thoughts and charging them criminally on the basis of what they're thinking about.

Both Isabel Vaughan-Spruce and Adam Smith-Connor were completely exonerated. But global censorship is on the rise.

REICHARD: And it’s worth mentioning: The law in other countries does affect American jurisprudence.

One example is the Dobbs case that overturned Roe v. Wade.

Friend of the court briefs filed in that case pointed out that a lot of European countries that have abortion on demand regimes also have laws that are stricter than the Mississippi law. A 12-week limit versus 15.

KOREN: And so it was just kind of positioning the U.S. as this outlier and saying, look at the U.S. What they're doing is really radical and the rest of the world actually is more in line, not not doing it right obviously, but more in line with a more conservative approach on this issue.

ROUGH: And many of these free-speech cases are a good reminder that just because another person believes or expresses a different view, it doesn’t mean it’s a crime.

KOREN: We hear things that are offensive to our faith pretty much every minute of every day. You can't walk down the street without seeing things that are offensive, but as long as they're peaceful expressions and they're not inciting violence or coming after me for my Christian faith, we respect the right of the other to think differently from us and to espouse different beliefs and to articulate those beliefs There's laws and consequences in place when you're inciting violence, and that's a different matter entirely.

That’s this week’s Legal Docket. I’m Jenny Rough.

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

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

David, good morning!

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

EICHER: No big macro-economic stories this week, so I imagine it’s all about looking into corporate profits, or losses, I suppose.

BAHNSEN: Yeah. I mean, for us right now, particularly being in the world of money management, there's no question that it's earnings season. And when you have a few weeks, every quarter, where all the major companies in the public stock market are releasing their results. That's really where you're seeing kind of what's happening under the hood in terms of revenue, growth, profit, growth, profit, margins, all of these kinds of things that really, ultimately do dictate where financial markets go. But then in all those other weeks, there can be a tendency to be focusing more on macro and the Fed and, and the jobs data and things like that. Ultimately, I think that macro plays less of a role in where company specifics matter, and that the underlying attributes of company's specific stuff is what drives stock prices, for example, over time, and so weeks, like this week, are always really refreshing for a money manager like me, because you're just sort of back to basics, you know, really seeing what's happening under the hood of American companies. And I think by and large, a lot of companies are doing very well, a lot of margins have stabilized, you don't see rapid profit deceleration. Now you're not seeing big profit growth either other than certain sectors. But that narrative of a soft landing gets really reinforced by weeks like this, where the profit story from some of our great industrial companies or banks, and whatnot, they seem reasonably stable.

EICHER: David, this week, several tech execs were at the White House, signing some voluntary guidelines on artificial intelligence. What’s your take on AI? And I mean financially. Is this all shiny-object to your way of thinking, or is there some financial substance to it?

BAHNSEN: Yeah, there's a sense in which I want to apply the term shiny object because there will be a bubble like characteristic that can take hold, and there will be a lot of people that lose a lot of money, just chasing AI investment indiscriminately. So that's a shiny object type thing. But I don't want to paint with the same brush of shiny object that I would like Bitcoin or crypto where there's no intrinsic value. People don't really know why they're owning it, and they just hope it goes higher. Ai obviously has real utility. And in that sense, it could end up being more like the internet, where early on, there were a lot of companies throwing on a.com label, and they were getting a valuation boost by doing that, but they weren't tying it in anything real, anything substantive. A lot of companies are doing that right now with AI. They're, they're using terms and vocabulary to capture kind of a mystique of artificial intelligence, but they're not connecting it to any real revenue model or any real business model. And so ultimately, I think there will be utility there will be usefulness, but I think it's going to be a tiny, tiny fraction of the amount of companies that go there and separating that wheat from the chaff will take a long time.

EICHER: I was reading a feature in The Wall Street Journal on housing prices and the double-whammy home-buyers are experiencing.

You’ve got a relative scarcity of real-estate with people in the market for homes making offers above the list and bidding prices up. But then in the rising interest-rate environment, mortgages are in the sevens. Do you see that coming down anytime soon, or are we stuck for awhile?

BAHNSEN: Well, you're really stuck right now between a rock and a hard place because the prices are down 1% year over year in terms of median home prices, and they really need to be down 15% to start to level out the market. However, people cannot buy a new home at a 7% interest rate when they already are in a mortgage at 3%. And that's the number one thing holding people in place is people that are ready to move people that are ready to upgrade buy a bigger home a nicer home, and they can't do it not because of the size or cost of the home but because of the ease interest rate, they have a deal that's too good to be true in their current home. And I ran a study on this at the DC today.com, a couple of weeks ago, it's 92% of people with a mortgage right now that have a rate below 6%. And the market rate is around 7%. But of that 92%, it's 66% that have a rate below 4%. And I believe it was 28% that have a below three. So people are not going to see their rate double or in some cases almost triple. It's just not going to happen. And so that really limits the pool of buyers. And then most sellers are well aware that if they wait rates are going to be coming down and then possibly going to be in a healthier environment. But one thing that's interesting, past softening cycles, when you shift from a buyer's, excuse me a seller's market, to a buyers market, it's usually violent. Right now, a third of all deals that closed last month with closed above asking price. And you're still seeing two or three offers on most deals that actually do go to market. But you only are seeing 20% of the deals that you saw a year ago. So volume is down 80%. And that's really the reason why is that buyers and sellers are at a stalemate, buyers aren't going to do a 7% mortgage and sellers aren't going to lower their price.

EICHER: Good Dividend Cafe this past weekend, David, on supply chains and our vulnerability there with respect to China. Let me throw a challenge at you: can you squeeze that down here in our time remaining? It’s worth thinking about after the Covid moment exposed the vulnerability of the supply chain and how we ought to think about on-shoring more of that and not being so reliant on China.

BAHNSEN: Yes, it's always a hard challenge, Nick, for I have like two hours of stuff to say, and I have to get it into 20 minutes in dividend Cafe, and then take 20 minutes a dividend Cafe into two minutes for world is tough. But you know, in a nutshell, it's a fair question. I'm basically saying that for different reasons than people imagined six or seven years ago, we are seeing a slow conversion out of a lot of the offshoring to China for manufacturing, and either into onshoring or nearshoring, meaning moving into a country, not China, but not necessarily the United States could be Mexico could be Canada, etc. And then it isn't happening at a lightspeed pace, but it has picked up and it's picked up for reasons more national security driven, juxtaposed with cultural concerns, but not the protectionist or economic nationalist reasons that we're in the political sphere seven years ago, I think that there is 0% chance that this happens without disruption, that there will be some negative disruption around it, and there will be positive opportunity around it as well. But my concern would be the government messing it up. This is not the time to be offering subsidies and credits and corporate welfare to people, but allowing this normal market process and seeing some of the competitive disadvantages that have taken hold in utilizing China as a vital part of supply chain, I think that we're gonna see a huge increase of productivity United States, if the government doesn't get in the way, but too many people are begging the government to get involved in this. And I vehemently disagree. And a lot of people on the right are asking the government to do that. And I vehemently disagree. I think that ultimately, the country learned out of the COVID moment that we do have a little too much of our supply chain for national security reasons dependent on China. And it isn't always just that the entire thing is manufactured there. We could be manufacturing something in Korea, or something in the US, but it goes through China at some point along the way. And that there is a benefit to us taking more control of our supply chain. And we have the 77% increase in factory construction in America in the last year. That's a great number, but people got to understand that's off of a very, very low number. So even plus 77% is not as high as it may sound. The next step when you build factories is you need machinery in the factories. And the next step when you put machinery in factories is you need people to work there. My question is not about China. It says the US going to have the labor participation, particularly from able bodied men, I have to say, because all of the whining about China's supply chain is all for naught if we can't get people to go got to work at new factories.

EICHER: Ok, David Bahnsen is founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group. His personal website is Bahnsen.com. His weekly Dividend Cafe is found at dividendcafe.com.

David, thanks, have a great week!

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, July 24th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Next up: the WORLD History Book. With last month’s loss of the Titan submersible, we return today to the first successful Titanic salvage mission.

And, the armistice agreement that brought an official end to the fighting in Korea.

But first, 100 years ago, a treaty that set international boundaries in the Anatolian and Balkan Peninsulas. Here’s Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER: Setting international borders is a tricky thing after wars. And fall-out from those decisions often have far reaching effects.

On July 24th, 1923, representatives of the Ottoman Empire, the kingdom of Greece, and six other countries sign a treaty in Lausanne, Switzerland:

NEWSREEL: The first signature to the historic treaty is Mr McDonald, on behalf of Great Britain.

Nearly five years after the end of World War I the Treaty of Lausanne finally settles the internationally recognized boundaries of Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey.

NEWSREEL: [SOUND OF EUROPEAN RATIFICATION OF TREATY]

Generally speaking, the treaty sets Turkish sovereignty as extending three miles from its Asia Minor shores. Most of the islands beyond that distance are ceded to Greece.

The treaty does more than set borders though. It also grants immunity to those responsible for crimes connected to political events between 1914 and 1922, putting an end to efforts to prosecute war crimes such as the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides.

NEWSREEL: Peace mutual, that it has ended successfully, not only for itself but has opened up new doors, broader ways for the further advance of peace in the whole world.

Many within Turkey wrongly believe the treaty is set to expire today on its 100th anniversary, but it has no sunset clause. However, since at least 2018 Turkey’s President Erdogan has been publicly calling for changes to the treaty in an attempt to recapture some of the lost territory after World War I.

Next, thirty years later after the Lausanne Treaty, another historic agreement. July 27th, 1953: the United States, China, and North Korea sign an armistice.

NEWSREEL: At long last, the misery and the bloodshed of the war in Korea has been halted. Let's hope indeed that it's been ended.

The Korean War officially began on June 25th, 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea. But the conflict began long before. Japan annexed the Korean peninsula in 1910. After World War II, the country was divided in half along the 38th parallel—with the Soviet Union administering the north, and the United States the south. The somewhat arbitrary division soon becomes the frontlines of a devastating war. China and the Soviet Union jump in supporting North Korea and the United States and United Nations back South Korea.

Ceasefire negotiations begin as early as 1951, but questions over POWs prove a difficult sticking point. Talks are slow. But after three years of bloodshed and little to show for it, the three world powers eventually agree to a cessation of hostilities.

NEWSREEL: Pathe news cameramen record the last vital moments of the Korean War as a convoy of army vehicles brings United Nations officers to the truce site at Panmunjom for the signing of the armistice. Within the camp stands a communist built Peace Pagoda.

While the communists sign the armistice agreement at the Peace Pagoda, United Nations Commander: General Mark Clark signs six copies of the document at the U.N. basecamp:

NEWSREEL, GENERAL CLARK: We have stopped the shooting. That means much to the fighting men and their families and it will allow some of the grievous wounds of Korea to heal. Therefore, I am thankful.

The agreement establishes the Korean Demilitarized Zone—or DMZ—as the new border between the two nations.

NEWSREEL, GENERAL CLARK: I cannot find it in me to exult in this hour rather, it is a time for prayer that we may succeed in our difficult endeavor to turn this armistice to the advantage of mankind.

The President of South Korea refuses to sign the armistice but pledges to observe it. However that refusal means the war between North and South Korea isn’t officially over and continues to this day.

And finally, July 27th, 1987 – RMS Titanic Inc. begins its first salvage expedition of the Titanic wreckage.

From July 27th to September 10th, RMS Titanic Inc. collects more than 18-hundred artifacts from the ocean floor. The company returns five more times over the next 13 years and in the end, brings up more than 6-thousand artifacts.

The salvage expeditions and the succeeding auctions of Titanic artifacts don’t sit well with many families touched by the tragedy. Rob Gordon lost two relatives in the sinking, and in 2012 he told CBS Morning News he believes the site should be protected, and left alone.

GORDON: I find it offensive. My great aunt’s wedding dress is down there. I just think it’s wrong to sift through them and put a price tag on them.

As the Titanic lies in international waters, no single country can claim rights to the artifacts. But 100 years after the accident the United Nations officially declared the underwater wreckage a “Cultural Heritage” site, protecting it from future looting.

That didn’t stop companies like Ocean Gate from attempting to exploit the site in other ways—such as tourism. But with last month’s destruction of the Titan submersible, Ocean Gate has terminated all commercial operations. Perhaps it will lead others to once again treat the Titanic’s final resting place with more reverence—like the grave site that it is.

That’s this week’s World History Book, I’m Paul Butler

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: The Hunter Biden whistleblower hearing. What does the most recent testimony tell us about the investigation? And, the challenges of being an army recruiter at a time when more young people are choosing not to join the armed services. 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 one of the twelve [disciples], whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I deliver [Jesus] over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him. Matthew 14, verses 14 through 16.

Go now in grace and peace.

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