The World and Everything in It: July 31, 2025

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning!

Oregon can no longer discriminate against adoptive parents who hold religious views on sexuality. We’ll hear from the woman at the center of a recent case.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Also, are state laws protecting babies leading to an exodus of OBGYNS? We’ll look at the data.

And speaking of numbers, we also have an explanation of a common weather term.

Plus, what happens when a person’s DNA helps convict a family member?

DAVIS: He goes, “I’m a little conflicted, but if this is proving what he did to that person… I will help you in any way possible.”

And who’s to blame for the food crisis in Gaza?

MAST: It’s Thursday, July 31st. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

BUTLER: And I’m Paul Butler. Good morning!

MAST: Now the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Earthquake, tsunami update » Fears of a devastating tsunami faded Wednesday for the U.S. and Japan after a powerful earthquake struck near Russia’s far East.

Many warnings expired yesterday .

US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem:

NOEM:  We saw, uh, waves, um, in Alaska and in Hawaii, um, that were minimal, uh, graded is how they talked about them.

Some parts of Hawaii saw waves of about 5 or 6 feet, but nothing like the truly dangerous swells the islands were bracing for.

The tsunami warning gave Japan quite the scare and forced nearly 2 million people to evacuate their homes for higher ground.

That 8.8 magnitude earthquake was one of the strongest ever. This recording captured the violent shaking inside a building near the epicenter on Russia's Kamchatka peninsula:

The quake mainly impacted a sparsely populated area. There were no reports of deaths or serious injuries there.

Tariffs, trade  » President Trump is announcing a new tariff on goods from India.

TRUMP: India's been a good friend, but India has charged basically more tariffs than almost any other country.

And top White House economist, Kevin Hassett says that frustrates the president.

HASSET: But feels that a 25% tariff will address and remedy the situation in a way that's good for the American people.

But the president says he'll add an additional import tax because India buys Russian oil, helping Moscow's war with Ukraine.

Trump has said he is prepared to start hitting Moscow with secondary sanctions, charging steep tariffs to countries that do business with Russia.

However, the president said talks with Indian officials are still ongoing this week.

Fed leaves rates unchanged » The Federal Reserve says it’s still not time to cut interest rates.

POWELL:  In support of our goals today, the Federal Open Market Committee decided to leave our policy interest rate unchanged.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell again said the central bank still feels it needs to allow more time to evaluate the impact of President Trump’s tariffs on inflation.

POWELL:  It's starting to show up in consumer prices, as you know, in the June report. We expect to see more of that. Um, and we know from surveys that companies feel that they have every intention of, of, uh, of putting this through to the consumer. But you know, the truth is they may not be able to, in many cases.

With Wednesday’s announcement, the Fed brushed off President Trump’s repeated calls for a cut, leaving its key short-term rate at about 4.3%.

Two Fed governors dissented in favor of a rate reduction.

Most analysts still expect rate reductions later in the year.

Healthcare tech initiative » President Trump Wednesday announced a high‑tech modernization of America’s health data system.

TRUMP:  Instead of filling out the same tedious paperwork at every medical appointment, patients will simply be able to grant their doctors access to their records at the push of a button.

His administration is introducing an initiative called the CMS Digital Health Tech Ecosystem.

TRUMP:  Moving from clipboards and fax machines into a new era of convenience, profitability, and speed, and frankly, better health for people.

Companies including Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are all developing platforms or tools to access and manage health records.

But critics say the move could expose sensitive health data to privacy breaches, since many third-party apps accessing the data aren’t subject to strict medical privacy laws like HIPAA.

NTSB collision hearing » The National Transportation Safety Board has opened a three-day hearing into that January mid-air collision over Washington’s Reagan National Airport.

NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said the goal is, in part, to provide answers to the families of the 67 people killed when a military helicopter flew into the path of a commercial jet.

HOMENDY:  We wish we would have met you in different circumstances, but please know that we are working diligently to make sure we know what occurred, how it occurred, and to prevent it from ever happening again.

She said that at the end of the investigation, the board will hold a public meeting to release the final report, describing the findings and the likely cause of the crash.

Investigators have already determined that the U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter exceeded the permitted 200-foot altitude limit, flying at around 300 feet before impact.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: a win for an Oregon mom who wants to help kids in the foster care system. Plus, using new tools to solve old crimes.

This is The World and Everything in It.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: It’s Thursday the 31st of July.

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

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

First up on The World and Everything in It, a win for religious liberty in Oregon.

Last week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a single mother pursuing adoption. Back in 2022, Jessica Bates applied to adopt after listening to a Christian radio program about a single father who adopted a son out of foster care.

BATES: I did not have a mindset at all of, like, adopting kids. My husband had been gone for about three or so years at that point, and I have five children. But then it was like this, it was a voice that was, those are my children.

BUTLER: Bates spoke with WORLD after the ruling. She says her certification process went well until the state’s resource and families training got to gender ideology.

BATES: They want you to use pronouns, and, you know, be really supportive, take kids to gay pride events, post things in your yard, and stuff like all of this. And I didn't really say anything during the class. I just kind of okay, you know. But after it, I went ahead and emailed that I had some concerns. That with my faith, I might not be able to do these things that they're wanting me to do.

When state officials got back to her, they asked Bates an unusual question.

BATES: If we put a child in your care who wants to transition, are you willing to take them to hormone injections? And I told him no, and that I felt like, you know that is child abuse, and I wouldn't do that for my biological children either. And at which point they basically were like, Okay, well, we're going to put your application on pause, and basically you'll receive a denial letter and everything else.

MAST: When it was clear this was no simple misunderstanding, but Oregon’s official policy, Bates sued. While courts heard her case, Bates asked for an injunction that would allow her to continue the adoption process in the meantime. The district court said no.

WILDMALM-DELPHONSE: It's just an ideological litmus test. It's saying that you have to agree with us on this controversial issue that you know, people have very different opinions about.

Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse is an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom representing Bates.

WILDMALM-DELPHONSE: Oregon is like many other states that are facing a crisis in foster care. And Jessica's more than capable, right? She's a parent to five kids. She's more than capable of caring for at least some of these kids, and some of these kids would undeniably thrive in a religious home.

BUTLER: Bates appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Two years later, the court handed down its initial judgement.

BATES: My understanding is that it means I would be able to resume the process of where I left off three years ago, of getting back into being certified to foster, and then obviously I initially would like to adopt.

Attorney Widmalm-Delphonse says the ruling also sets a precedent for prioritizing common sense over ideology in the foster care system.

WILDMALM-DELPHONSE: If you're going to exclude people based on these speculative reasons, you need to come with a lot more evidence. And of course, they didn't have any evidence actually shows that. You know, children just need a loving home. That's what they primarily need.

MAST: The lower court still has to rule on the merits of Bates’s case, but Widmalm-Delphonse is hopeful this initial ruling sets the trajectory for Oregon and other states to remove roadblocks for religious parents to adopt. As for Bates, her household has been through a lot in three years. Her oldest son is getting married this summer.

BATES: But I think I would like to resume the process, yeah, and look into helping some kids out.

BUTLER: To read more about this story, look for Liz Lykins’ article on WORLD Digital.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Next, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, abortion advocates claimed pro-life laws would drive obstetricians and gynecologists out of states with those laws. Some doctors did choose to leave those states, but was it really a mass exodus?

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Three years later, the data does not support that prediction. Pro-life laws haven’t cleared out the profession, but numbers show they’ve affected the medical pipeline— stoking fear among medical students about training and legal risk.

Still, some doctors say the new protections for unborn babies may be drawing in pro-life students who once avoided the OBGYN specialty. WORLD’s Lauren Canterberry reports.

LAUREN CANTERBERRY: Last month, 14 OB-GYNs in Georgia who responded to a survey said they were considering leaving the state over a law that protects unborn babies after six weeks of pregnancy. Another 11 doctors said they personally knew a colleague who had already left the state.

Here’s Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff at a hearing last year.

JON OSSOFF: Eight weeks ago, we heard from OB-GYNs that testified the state’s abortion ban puts the lives of women at unnecessary risk and drives OB-GYNs out of Georgia where already more than 50% of counties have no OB-GYN at all.

Ossoff and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists polled 38 physicians in the survey. According to the findings, 18 doctors claimed they had encountered cases in which the state’s law contributed to a mother’s health complications or death.

Georgia’s law protects babies after their heartbeats are detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy. A similar law in Alabama protects babies from abortion in nearly all cases.

Dr. Robin Cardwell is a pro-life OB-GYN in Huntsville, Alabama. She says she reviews the law every time a woman’s pregnancy prompts concerns about her health.

ROBIN CARDWELL: It says in reasonable medical judgment, the unborn child's mother has a condition that so complicates her medical condition that it necessitates the termination of her pregnancy to avert death or to avert serious risk of substantial physical impairment of a major bodily function. That's not really medical jargon.

Even in cases when an abortion clearly falls under the law’s narrow exceptions, Cardwell said many OB-GYNs, nurses, and anesthesiologists are still afraid of prosecution.

CARDWELL: We have multiple discussions amongst providers, and even when, you know, we get the lawyers involved or the maternal fetal medicine specialist, there's this like aura of fear around taking care of these patients, and it does delay care because it may take some time to kind of come to a consensus.

Cardwell does not know anyone personally who has left the state over its law, but anecdotes of OB-GYNs doing just that have captured headlines. Reports out of Tennessee and Idaho suggest physicians are leaving their states to continue performing abortions.

Meanwhile, a study published in April concluded that the number of providers did not significantly change across states with differing abortion laws in the two years after the Dobbs decision. Researchers at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health found that, from 2018 to 2024, the number of OB-GYNs increased in every state.

That study only examined physicians already practicing, and did not capture the decisions of residents or medical students. Some doctors-in-training say they are concerned about meeting the residency standards outlined by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the accrediting body that oversees graduate medical programs. Both groups claim abortions are part of essential healthcare, and include abortion training in their standards.

Dr. Madison Chapman is a pro-life OB-GYN in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and completed his residency last month.

MADISON CHAPMAN: Within the OB-GYN community, pretty much everyone takes the ACOG stance, which is, you know, every woman should have the access to an abortion if they want it.

If students do not want to abort babies, they have to opt out of the abortion training rotation. Chapman completed his residency in Texas, which has protections for unborn babies.

CHAPMAN: The program would pay for you to go to California for three to four weeks and complete abortions.

Chapman says even without the rotation, all OB-GYNs learn to care for patients in emergency situations. And that the only procedure residents in pro-life states may have fewer opportunities to practice is the dilation and evacuation procedure. It is used to remove miscarried babies or kill unwanted babies after the first trimester of pregnancy.

CHAPMAN: This involves more skill and more training that is usually not done in abortion-restricted states.

Many pro-life doctors prefer to induce labor in cases when a baby dies after the first trimester. Meanwhile, pro-abortion groups have fueled misinformation about pro-life practices by encouraging doctors to put aside personal beliefs when counseling women seeking abortions.

Dr. Francis Nuthalapaty has seen pro-abortion programs alienate students who believe in the sanctity of life.

FRANCIS NUTHALAPATY: I actually see the tide turning, where now some of those people who said before, ‘I don’t think I’d want to go into OB-GYN,’ now may feel more comfortable doing it.

Nuthalapaty now runs a new residency program at AdventHealth in Florida. He says many students enter medical school without thinking deeply about bioethical issues.

NUTHALAPATY: You might think that this is a standard part of medical education, and it's not, it's an oft overlooked or or barely emphasized portion of the curriculum.

He believes students should begin discussing these topics as early as high school so they know where they stand before they ever enter a hospital. When he counsels students on where to apply for residency or where to practice, he tells them to consider their personal values.

NUTHALAPATY: I’ve learned that there are some people who really have a strong worldview. They’re well rooted in their faith, and they can go into any environment and just be fine and be a light in that place and really, you know, go head to head with folks. If you’re not really well-established yourself, chances are, if you go into that kind of an environment, it’s going to change you more than you change it.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lauren Canterberry.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Up next, with record temperatures the last few weeks across portions of the US, we’re not just hearing about the temperature, but what it supposedly feels like to the human body.

BUTLER: Joining us now to help us understand what exactly the heat index is… is David Legates, retired Professor of Geography and Climatology at the University of Delaware. He’s also the Director of Research and Education at the Cornwall Alliance and specializes in long-term weather and climate data. Good morning, David.

DAVID LEGATES: Good morning.

BUTLER: Well, let's start with just a little history, shall we? When exactly did climate scientists begin tracking what we now call the heat index?

LEGATES: Well, it goes back a while because people sort of recognize if it's 95 degrees in New Orleans and it's 95 degrees in Tucson, there's quite a bit of difference between the two climates. So you can sort of, you can put up with 95 degrees in Tucson. I've lived in Baton Rouge, 95 degrees in New Orleans is nearly unbearable. It's like walking outside into underwater conditions. It's just massive humidity.

And the idea is the human body cools based upon perspiration. So you perspire, water evaporates, it cools the surface, works very well in the desert, not so much in a swamp where the air is already saturated or near saturated, and there's just no way to get that moisture to evaporate well.

So back, I guess, in the 1950s or 1960s, they came up with the idea of the temperature humidity index. The idea was that we can figure temperature, but temperature doesn't have to tell the whole story. We want to add in humidity as well. And then back in the late 70s, Robert Stedman came along. He tried to look at some things associated with human heat stress. The idea is that looking at the amount of cooling that would take place on a human being based upon the humidity characteristics. It's really the temperature combined with the humidity, and that eventually morphed into the heat index that National Weather Service and everybody else reports today.

BUTLER: I have to admit that I’m a little skeptical about why so many news reports include the heat index…making the temperature data more sensational…but is it a helpful measure?

LEGATES: It can be if you understand just what it is and what it isn't. I mean, we often say “it feels like temperature.” So it's 95, but it feels like it's 110. Well, what does that really mean? I mean, you have to go back to Stedman's original work, which virtually nobody does. He says it's the equivalent heat loss that a person would experience if they were naked, standing prone outside and associated with the current conditions. If you were doing so in Tucson at 115, then if you were in New Orleans at 115. Temperature in New Orleans is 115, but because there's so much more humidity, your body can't get rid of energy or heat by evaporating water. And since that's the case, it feels like it would be if you were standing in an oven at 115.

So it's sort of like what it would be in the optimal sense of somebody standing in Tucson at the same temperature, how much energy would they release? Of course, the condition is it's never the same because at 115 and no humidity, it's still different than 95 and very high humidity.

BUTLER: So is it a helpful measure or is there something more helpful?

LEGATES: To the general public, it probably isn't because I don't think they ever understand what it means. So in some senses, it's a sensational figure because it always seems to go up and the windchill always seems to go down. So the idea is it always sounds colder. Or always sounds warmer than it really is.

There are studies that use heat index, but most of them tend to break the humidity out separately from the temperature and treat them as several variables rather than combining them. So I think the heat index is more of a colloquial way of saying feels like. It makes the television meteorologists and the radio meteorologists sort of sound like they know what they're talking about, but the general public doesn't know what that really means.

BUTLER: I suppose we could also make a safety argument for reporting the heat index…as meteorologists aren’t just reporting on the weather conditions but what we should do in response…

LEGATES: Yeah, because we report that the temperature is 105 Fahrenheit, then somebody's likely to say, wow, that's hot. Maybe I should make sure I've got extra water. Maybe I should take breaks. And hopefully that would be the kind of thing that would take the precautions they're supposed to take. So maybe it is scaring them into doing what's right in this case.

BUTLER: David Legates is a retired professor of climatology and co-editor of the helpful book: Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism. David, thanks so much for joining us today.

LEGATES: Thank you.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Estrella Quiroz was driving through Miami heat looking for lunch when she saw a tiny woman with a walker crossing the street at glacier speed. Sound from Today.com:

QUIROZ: I looked back around to see if I can find her and ask her if she needs a ride.

She found her— Lilian, a retired accountant, waiting for the bus. Estrella offered a lift and cracked up when Lilian told her her age.

QUIROZ AND LILIAN:(In Spanish) Noventa y siete. Noventie y siete? (gasps)

Ninety-seven! They discovered they share ties to Nicaragua. They ended up bonding over burgers and stories from a lifetime. The video of their meeting went viral.

Not bad for a lunch run!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Thursday, July 31st.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: solving cold cases.

According to the FBI over the past 30 years in the U-S, more than 100,000 murder cases have gone cold. Other estimates put the total number of unsolved homicides at around 270,000.

MAST: An estimated 42 percent of murders in America go unsolved. That leaves loved ones looking for answers and killers on the loose.

But a new technology could change that. And, a word of caution: this story deals with crimes and details that may not be suitable for younger listeners.

WORLD correspondent Maria Baer reports.

MARIA BAER: Thirty miles outside of Columbus, Ohio, sits the state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigations, or BCI.

DREYER: So what I’m going to do, I just need you to stay here…

On the second floor of this imposing brick building, behind a series of ID-required security doors, is the state’s DNA lab.

Hallie Dreyer is the lab’s director. She points behind a wall of glass windows, where lab technicians in white coats are poring over a piece of clothing. It’s a pair of women’s underwear, and it looks stark and wrong lying on the sterile table. Dreyer says they’re collecting DNA from an assault.

DREYER: She’s going to open those up, she’ll document the condition. She’ll kind of open them, and then we’ll do some screening tests…

Maybe the DNA from this crime scene will hit in CODIS — that’s the Combined DNA Index System. This is where the FBI maintains DNA profiles collected from crime scenes and suspects across the country for cross-referencing.

Or maybe this DNA won’t match any profiles in that database.

DREYER: The cases that don’t benefit from that, meaning we don’t get a hit, link, or an answer, we’re still investigating, that’s where we consider that next step, which is investigative genealogy.

Investigative genealogy involves comparing DNA collected at a crime scene, or from unidentified human remains, with the databases of consumer genealogy sites.

These at-home DNA testing products hit the market in the mid-2000s. 23andMe was the pioneer, founded in 2006. This and other companies like it provide consumers with a saliva-collection kit, which they can send away for testing. In a few weeks, customers receive a digital readout of several genetic markers. Hobbyists use the information to learn their ethnic background or even find relatives.

Increasingly, police are using it to find killers.

YOUTUBE: It’s a story that captured the attention of central Ohio. Eight-year-old Kelly Ann Prosser was kidnapped, raped, and killed, and for nearly 40 years, no arrest in the case. Thanks to a DNA match, now the police say the case is solved.

In 1982, Kelly Ann Prosser was abducted on her walk home from elementary school. Columbus cold case investigators said they never stopped working her case. But it was investigative genealogy that gave them their break.

YOUTUBE: Columbus police say a family tree was built through a partnership with Advance DNA that led them to a name they could use to go back through the case file.

Detectives had collected DNA at the scene of Kelly Ann’s murder, but it hadn’t matched in CODIS. With the help of a genealogy company, they instead used it to follow the killer’s family tree back to his doorstep.

There is fine print inside every user agreement for consumer-based DNA testing products. Some include a waiver that grants law enforcement access to their databases. 23andMe does not; but two others, GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA, do.

DREYER: Those are the law enforcement friendly ones that you can search.

That means some consumers who don’t read all the terms and conditions might not realize their DNA profile is freely accessible to police.

At least four states—Texas, Utah, Maryland and Montana—have passed legislation limiting law enforcement’s ability to search these databases. In some states, police must obtain a warrant.

Ohio investigators say investigative genealogy is a last resort when a case has hit a dead end. It’s expensive and time-consuming.

DREYER: You may get a hit in one of these databases where it’s a very high match. Meaning this is probably a parent or a child, those are great when you get them, it’s easy to build a tree. But more often than not, you’re getting those lower, where it’s like, ok it’s a second cousin once removed, and you’re trying to build back to a common ancestor. That can take months to years just depending on the types of tree that you’re building.

Sometimes, in the process of building a family tree, investigators need to reach out to a suspect’s family members to request a voluntary DNA sample. Special Agent Roger Davis leads Ohio’s cold case unit. He says most people are willing to comply—even when it gets personal.

DAVIS: I do know of a case where the person we talked to and got the sample, it was their brother who was actually the person who did it. But he even said, he goes, I’m a little conflicted, but if this is proving what he did to that person. I will help you in any way possible.

Dreyer says while the technology is becoming more sophisticated, it’s still not a perfect science. One thing DNA can’t tell investigators: whether the culprit was a twin.

DREYER: That’s why we never say in our reports or when we’re making our conclusions that it is his DNA and only his DNA. We say the DNA profile is consistent with him, and then we calculate a statistic that indicates the rarity of that. Because yes it may be rarer than one in a trillion, but what if he has an identical twin…

Incredibly, the twin problem has come up before.

DREYER: We’ve had it where the twin will blame his brother in the interview. No, that wasn’t me, it was my brother. Then it comes down to the investigative work, the timeline of where each of them where, what are the cell phone records…

Inside Ohio’s BCI lab, a machine that looks like a very high-tech microwave is filled with dozens of pipets.

AUDIO: [Beeps, machine whirring]

A robotic arm swivels over the pipets. Dreyer says this is called DNA extraction.

DREYER: Think of it as a tiny washing machine, you add detergent, break open the cells, extract the DNA, wash away all the other junk.

After a few more steps, technicians will create a report detailing whatever genetic information they could extract.

Special Agent Davis says he believes law enforcement will increasingly use investigative genealogy as they get used to the technology. The innovation reminds him of the way cell phone tracing technology revolutionized police work in the nineties.

Despite the privacy concerns, Davis believes civilians want to see violent crimes solved - to know that there is “nothing hidden that will not be made manifest.”

Dreyer agrees.

DREYER: There’s been huge changes with it. How we would look at a case 15, 20 years ago - how we would look at a case five years ago, has evolved since then. I’ve been in the field 15 years now, I continue to see the technology will evolve. It will grow.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Maria Baer in London, Ohio.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Today is Thursday, July 31st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Paul Butler.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Up next, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as aid organizations struggle to get food and supplies to civilians. Who’s to blame? Here’s commentator Cal Thomas:

CAL THOMAS: In the Middle East, war is conducted not only with bullets and missiles, but also with pictures. The latest are allegedly pictures of starving children in Gaza distributed by Hamas and its enablers. Photos intended to blame Israel for delaying, even denying entry of food trucks into the strip.

Such pictures are gobbled up and distributed to the world without question by the media. Outlets that are always critical of Israel and hardly critical at all of forces that seek to destroy the Jewish state.

Perhaps no nation in history has cared about preserving human life more than modern Israel. It even treats its wounded enemies in Israeli hospitals. It releases hundreds of convicted terrorists in exchange for a handful of captured Israeli soldiers. It distributes leaflets and makes phone calls urging civilians to evacuate areas inhabited by Hamas terrorists before those areas are attacked. What other nation does that?

The New York Post reports “Col. Abdullah Halabi, from the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, told reporters last week that around 1,000 truckloads of aid remain undelivered ‘due to a lack of cooperation from the international community and international organizations.’” Predictably, others are blaming Israel, which plays into Hamas’ hands.

The problem for Israel is that it has defeated Hamas, but Hamas won’t surrender. The terrorist organization is the main impediment to getting food to those who need it, but the seeds of today’s disaster began in 2005 when Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip by dismantling all 21 of its remaining settlements. It didn’t take a prophet to predict the vacuum would soon be filled by terrorists eager to use Gaza as a base for attacking Israel.

What followed was this:

— Gazans foolishly elected Hamas as their government. They are now reaping what they sowed.

— Hamas began preparing tunnels and placing missiles in civilian areas like schools and hospitals so when Israel responded to their attacks they would show video of civilians being killed or injured to international media.

— On Oct. 7th, 2023, Hamas murdered Israeli civilians at a music concert and took hostages, some of whom are dead, a few released and an estimated 50 remain in their hands.

— Hamas has stolen food and prevented supplies from reaching the needy.

Pictures and the narrative that accompanies them can be manipulated to serve the ends of Hamas. Two examples: A widely circulated photo shows a young boy held by what appears to be his mother. The child’s emaciated condition was initially portrayed as the result of starvation. Newsweek and The New York Post investigated and discovered that the boy, identified only as Muhammad, also suffers from conditions like cerebral palsy, hypoxemia and a genetic disorder. His malnutrition may be exacerbated by the war, but it does not appear to be the sole cause of his condition.

Another child, identified as Osama al-Raqab, suffers from cystic fibrosis and was receiving care in Italy after he was evacuated from Gaza. His picture was also widely distributed with starvation blamed as the cause. These cases don’t excuse the food shortages many are experiencing in Gaza, but they add perspective and should emphasize where the real blame lies.

Scenarios like this have been played out so often over decades you might think the media and governments that always seem to take the side of Israel’s enemies would have figured it out by now. It leads one to question whose side they are on. Given their statements, boycotts and slanted news coverage, it seems clear to me.

I’m Cal Thomas.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Tomorrow: Katie McCoy is with us once again for Culture Friday. One conversation on the agenda—teens and AI companions.

And, WORLD Reviewer Joseph Holmes reviews Dreamworks’ Bad Guys 2 opening this weekend.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Lindsay Mast.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible records Jesus going to his hometown and preaching in the synagogue. People questioned his wisdom, saying: “ Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief. Verses 3 through 6 of Mark Chapter 6.

Go now in grace and peace.

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