The World and Everything in It — March 10, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

An emboldened Iran tests the resolve of the Biden administration.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

Also World Tour. 

Plus, helping families find new homes for all of their stuff.

And WORLD founder Joel Belz on the trouble with man-made law.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, March 10th. 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: Up next, Kent Covington has the news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Republicans sound alarms on border surge » Republicans are taking aim at President Biden’s immigration and border policies, as traffic on the U.S. southern border continues to surge. 

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise said Tuesday…

SCALISE: Today we’re seeing 3-or-4,000 illegal crossings a day at our southern border. It is a national crisis, and it needs to be confronted by President Biden, and he refuses to acknowledge this. 

Reuters reports that last month, U.S. border agents detained nearly 100,000 migrants at the southern border. That’s the highest monthly total since a border surge in 2019. 

And officials in the Rio Grande Valley Sector say they just detained more than 2,000 migrants in that sector alone in a single 24-hour period. 

Republican Arizona Gov. Asa Hutchinson said the Biden administration’s rush to reverse the Trump administration policies is creating a crisis. 

HUTCHINSON: And they need to do something very quickly to change course, because right now it’s a humanitarian crisis, but it’s only going to get worse with the unaccompanied minors that are increasing the flow across the border. 

But White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that  former President Trump is to blame.

PSAKI: We are still digging our way out of a dismantled, immoral and ineffective immigration policy that was being implemented by the last administration that was largely based around funding for a border wall. It’s going to take us some time.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and other administration officials visited the border over the weekend and were expected to provide a status report to the president this week. 

U.S. prosecutors allege Honduras president helped move drugs » U.S. prosecutors say a witness has accused the president of Honduras of helping to traffic drugs to the United States. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown has more. 

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: Federal prosecutors in New York said Tuesday an accountant witnessed meetings between Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández and a drug trafficker.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Gutwillig said the accountant was present when Hernández allegedly said he wanted to “shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos’.”

The meetings allegedly occurred in 2013 and 2014. Hernández has previously denied any involvement with drug traffickers, and he has not been charged. But U.S. authorities have been investigating him, and prosecutors believe he has taken bribes from traffickers. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown. 

Jury selection begins in Chauvin trial » Jury selection began Tuesday in the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged in the death of George Floyd. 

CAHILL: You have been summoned as potential jurors in the case of the state of Minnesota vs Derek Chauvin, which is a criminal case. 

Judge Peter Cahill addressed potential jurors…

CAHILL: The attorneys will have the right to excuse some of you from this jury, and I may excuse others of you for what we call cause. In either case, it does not mean that you are not a fair person, and you should not take offense in being excused. 

The judge acknowledged that finding jurors with no prior knowledge of such a highly public case is almost impossible. And with that in mind, Chauvin’s defense attorney Eric Nelson asked potential jurors…

NELSON: The opinion that you had before when you first saw the video, would you be willing to change that opinion if you find other information out later? 

Judge Cahill set aside three weeks for the jury selection process, but it could go longer. 

Derek Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death in May of last year. 

Twitter sues Texas AG, claiming retaliation for Trump ban » Twitter is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claiming he used his office to retaliate against Twitter after it banned former President Trump’s account in January. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more. 

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: Paxton last month announced an investigation into Twitter and four other major tech companies for what he called “the seemingly coordinated de-platforming of the president.” 

The Republican attorney general’s office demanded the companies produce a variety of records and internal communications.

Twitter’s lawsuit claims Paxton is seeking to punish it for taking Trump’s account offline. The company said the decision to ban Donald Trump is protected free speech. 

The lawsuit essentially asks the judge to halt Paxton’s investigation.

Republican officials in roughly two dozen states have also introduced bills that would allow for civil lawsuits against platforms for censorship of posts. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin. 

RZIM plans name change » The ministry named after apologist Ravi Zacharias is removing all his content from its platforms. CEO Sarah Davis made the announcement Monday. Ravi Zacharias International Ministries also intends to change its name. 

An investigation by an Atlanta law firm found Zacharias engaged in significant sexual misconduct before his death in May of last year. Since investigators announced their findings, the organization’s branch in Canada said it would shut down. The ministry’s branch in Africa took down its website, and the U.K. ministry cut ties with the Zacharias organization.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Washington’s standoff with Iran.

Plus, Joel Belz on man’s laws and God’s laws.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Wednesday, the 10th of March, 2021.

You’re listening to The World and Everything in It and we’re so glad to have you along today. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. First up: Iran. Deal or no deal? 

In 2018, President Trump pulled the plug on what the Obama administration considered a signature diplomatic achievement.

TRUMP: We cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement. The Iran deal is defective at its core.

Critics of the 2015 nuclear agreement said it would not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. And it funded Iran’s terrorism around the world.

EICHER: President Biden, however, believes the best way forward is backward: a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—the JCPOA, as the Iran Deal is known.

But Iranian leaders rejected the first attempt by the Biden White House and European allies to try to bring Iran back to the table. Press Secretary Jen Psaki…

PSAKI: We’re disappointed in Iran’s response. We remain ready to re-engage in meaningful diplomacy to achieve a mutual return to compliance with JCPOA commitments.

Leaders in Tehran continue to play hardball. 

They say the United States first has to drop all sanctions against them before they’ll agree to new talks. 

President Biden says that’s not happening.

REICHARD: So, will either side cave? Or will Iran simply stay the course? 

Joining us now to discuss this is Richard Goldberg. He is senior adviser on Iran with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He’s also a former White House National Security adviser on Iranian weapons of mass destruction.

Richard, good morning.

RICHARD GOLDBERG, GUEST: Good morning. Thank you for having me. 

REICHARD: Now, I know we can’t know the answer to this question with any certainty. But, in your opinion, how close is Iran to developing a nuclear weapon?

GOLDBERG: So, the answer to that has a couple of different paths. Number one, when we look at Iran’s capabilities, we look at two different sides of how you can make a nuclear weapon. One is through uranium and one is through plutonium. Now, they did have a heavy water reactor. The base of it still exists. The reactor core is no longer functional. It could be reconstituted. That represents the plutonium path. 

Right now that is delayed. Their uranium path, though, is quite active and remains a threat. And what happens is when you start enriching uranium to a high enough level, all the way up at some point to 90 percent, which is considered weapons grade and you have enough of that fissile material left over, you have enough to put into a nuclear weapon potentially. 

Now, Iran is not at that point yet. What they do today is they run a lot of centrifuges and they enrich a lot of uranium and they increase their stockpile. And they do that to create a source of tension. It’s an extortion tactic where they say, listen, our stockpile is growing. We’ve said we don’t want to pursue nuclear weapons, but you never know. So, if we have this much uranium sitting around and we ever chose in the future to develop it further to weapons grade uranium and we ever chose to build a nuclear device, we might be capable of racing to a nuclear breakout within just a few months. And that’s the timeline that we talk about in the media. Now, we don’t have evidence that that’s going to happen yet, and so that’s really the crux of the debate here. This extortion tactic of the Iranians is something that Donald Trump saw and said I’m not going to take the bait. I’m not going to pay you to stop enriching. I’m going to continue the sanctions pressure until you change direction, including halting your enrichment. We’re seeing different signals right now from the Biden administration, which has said we want to go back into the nuclear deal and lift U.S. sanctions on Iran in order to stop them from enriching. 

REICHARD: As we mentioned, Iran is showing no signs of budging. Do you believe a deal is still possible?

GOLDBERG: Well, a deal is always possible. The question is it a good deal for the United States. A deal is possible for Iran because Iran is still short on cash. they need money. And regime survival for a regime like this is their number one priority. So, the question for them is how much do they have to give up and how much are they going to get? And that’s the entire equation. That’s the dance we’re seeing right now is can they hold out long enough to really extort the Biden administration, make them desperate to get this crisis over with so they give up more than they have to and Iran gives up less than they need to. 

REICHARD: Iran may need money, but is it possible its strategy will be to stay the course, develop nuclear weapons and use nuclear status to blackmail everybody else? 

GOLDBERG: So, they clearly want to keep the capability to blackmail us. They want to keep the capability to be a nuclear threshold country where they’re right at that cusp. But they don’t want to go too far because they’re also afraid of a military strike. 

Now, certainly during the Trump administration they feared that Donald Trump might use military action because he was, you know, quite frankly, unpredictable. Now I don’t think they fear as much the Biden administration. But  they do fear the Israeli Air Force and what they might be capable of. And the Abraham Accords, that is the agreements of Arab countries normalizing with Israel, adds another wild card to that because maybe you don’t have to think about an Israeli airstrike like way back in the 1980s against the Iraqi program having to come all the way from the Mediterranean and back. Maybe there are some bases nearby Iran that could be used. Maybe there’s some cooperation with Arab countries that would happen in that case. So, they fear a military strike. They don’t want to go too far, obviously. 

But, again, they are showing us their cards, right? There’s a reason why they publicly display the enrichment. They announce to the International Atomic Energy Agency every time they increase enrichment. They want the attention. They want the crisis atmosphere. They want the headlines. Really what should bother us is not what we see but what we don’t see. And that is starting to come out slowly but surely from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Just last week we heard from their director general that he is increasingly confident that Iran may be concealing undeclared nuclear material, nuclear activities, nuclear sites that stem from before the United States left the Iran Deal—a fundamental breach of Iran’s nuclear obligations, a fundamental breach of the whole idea, the premise of the JCPOA, the Iran Nuclear Deal itself, that they abandoned all of their clandestine nuclear activities. And really questioning whether or not the deal did anything to detect them. And so that’s what we really need to worry about is will we allow ourselves to get sucked back into a nuclear deal and give Iran billions of dollars and not even get answers to basic questions about what else we don’t know about their nuclear program. 

REICHARD: You mention Iran’s not so fearful of the Biden administration. On Sunday, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said he was prepared to take steps to live up to the 2015 nuclear deal as soon as the United States lifts sanctions. Do you think President Biden is going to blink first and agree to those terms? 

GOLDBERG: Well, we’re seeing some moderate blinking at the moment. We have seen some recent reports over the last few days of a few billion dollars being unfrozen from different accounts—whether it’s in South Korea, Oman, or Iraq—that the Iranians are being given access to by the Biden administration very quietly. That’s not going to be enough, long term, for them to sustain their economy, given the level of their oil exports being driven down by U.S. sanctions, other exports in the non-oil arena as well.  

We also saw that even though the director general of the IAEA made those very startling comments last week, by the end of the week under U.S. pressure, our European allies pulled back on a resolution that had been offered to censure Iran, to condemn them for potentially concealing this undeclared nuclear material. Reportedly the Biden administration thought that was too provocative, asked them to pull back, not condemn Iran. 

The one last piece I’ll also talk about, obviously, is we’ve seen rocket attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq pick up. We had an attack against a U.S. base in northern Iraq in Erbil. It took several days for the Biden administration to respond to that, to even identify who was responsible. They ended up hitting a target in Syria of a militia that wasn’t even responsible for the attack and certainly did not attack any Iranians directly. 

So, really, a lot of signals combined that project to the supreme leader a real eagerness to get back into the deal and eagerness to give them money, quite frankly. And so if I was the supreme leader I would say I’m going to hold out as long as I possibly can, increase the desperation on the American side, and we’ll see what I get at the end of the day. How much money am I going to get for how little do I have to give up? 

REICHARD: Even if Iran were to come back to the table and they resume the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, would that truly prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons? How much trust can we have in this?

GOLDBERG: No. In fact, it gives them a legitimate pathway to nuclear weapons. One of the big flaws of the deal is that it did not require Iran to give up these enrichment capabilities. And we see that flaw on full display today. The fact that they’re able to enrich right now, they’re able to threaten us after all these years, means they’ll be able to do that at any time of their choosing in the future, no matter what. We ruffle a feather, we say something they don’t like, they will simply say, OK, we’re going to increase our enrichment.   And over time under the deal, there are actually sunset provisions, termination clauses to the restrictions that were in the deal. And so legally under a UN security council resolution, by 2031 Iran is allowed to enrich uranium up to weapons grade. And by that time with the sanctions relief they got under the deal their economy is booming, they’ve tested and perfected their missiles, which are not banned by the Nuclear Deal. This will be a crisis at some point. It could be a crisis today or it could be a crisis in five to 10 years. The question is do you want to face that crisis with a weak Iran without perfecting their missiles and without advanced nuclear capabilities? Or do you want to face a strong Iran that has perfected both their nuclear missile capabilities and sits in a robust economy? 

REICHARD: Richard Goldberg with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies … Richard, thanks so much!

GOLDBERG: Thank you.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour with Africa correspondent, Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Explosion in Equatorial Guinea—We start today here in Africa.

AUDIO: [Man speaking Spanish]

The finance minister of Equatorial Guinea appealed for international aid on Monday, one day after a series of explosions in the port city of Bata. At least 20 people died and more than 600 suffered injuries.

AUDIO: [Sounds of wind and people yelling]

Multiple blasts rocked a military barracks where explosives, dynamite, and ammunition were stored. Official accounts blame the blast on a fire that started in the weapons depot.

The Central African nation just south of Cameroon is home to about 1.3 million people. It is the continent’s only Spanish-speaking country.

Unrest in Senegal—Next we go to West Africa.

AUDIO: [Man speaking French]

Senegal’s president called for calm Monday after days of violent protests rocked the normally stable country. The protests began after an opposition leader popular with younger voters was arrested and charged with rape.

AUDIO: [Sounds of protests]

Riot police used tear gas to disperse protesters in the capital, Dakar. Supporters of the opposition party accuse the president of having his rival arrested to stifle dissent. They fear he will attempt to seek a third term in 2024, in violation of the country’s constitution. 

The unrest has alarmed neighboring countries and the United Nations. Both have called for calm.

Catalonian leaders stripped of immunity—Next we go to Europe.

The European Parliament has stripped three Catalonian separatist leaders of diplomatic immunity, paving the way for their extradition to Spain. Former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont called the vote a clear case of political persecution.

PUIGDEMONT: It is a sad day for European Parliament. We have lost our immunity but the European Parliament has lost more than that. And as a result, European democracy too.

Puigdemont and two others involved in the failed attempt to gain independence from Spain were elected to the European Parliament in 2019. That shielded them from prosecution on charges of sedition for organizing the independence referendum.

Spain’s foreign minister hailed the European Parliament’s decision and said it should not interfere in the country’s affairs. But Puigdemont and his political allies have vowed to take their case to the European Court of Justice.

Stolen armor returned to Louvre—And finally, we end today in France.

AUDIO: [Man speaking French, sound of cameras clicking]

Two pieces of Italian Renaissance armor have returned to the Louvre Museum in Paris, nearly 30 years after someone stole them.

The breastplate and a ceremonial helmet belonged to the collection of the Baroness de Rothschild, whose family donated them to the museum in 1922. They disappeared in 1983.

Experts discovered them during an estate auction in Bordeaux. It’s not yet clear how that family came to have them in its collection.

That’s this week’s World Tour. I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER, HOST: If you live in California and hear glass shattering and crashing sounds, your first thought is probably, uh, oh, earthquake!

And so when the office manager of a dental practice heard those sounds, that’s exactly what she thought. 

But then Donna McDonald went to investigate. And she found herself—wait for it—face to face with a very agitated wild turkey.

REICHARD: What?

Yeah, he’d crashed right through the office window, shattering glass all over the place and then scratching up the walls in his frenzy.

She wasn’t going to mess with Tom Turkey here, so she called in wildlife rescue. This is no job for an amateur. That angry bird didn’t appear in a cooperative frame of mind.

It seems this is turkey mating season, so our best guess is the tom got a glimpse of his fine self in the window reflection and thought, excellent specimen here, tough competitor for the local hens. Better take him out.

I know he wasn’t there for a dental appointment.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, March 10th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. 

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

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

Most homes have an accumulation of family heirlooms, cherished keepsakes, and, truthfully, a closet stuffed with stuff. Bric-a-brac. Tchotchkes. Daily life things like forks and sofas to things that make you wonder… what is that in the garage?

EICHER: Have no idea what you’re talking about…

REICHARD: Riiight.

EICHER: Seriously, someday someone’s going to inherit what we’ve stored up and wonder what to do with it all. WORLD correspondent Bonnie Pritchett spoke with a woman who helps people manage what others leave behind.

MEEKINS: Hey, y’all! Any items that aren’t priced just ask. I’ll give you a bit better price on them. Be careful where you turn around. The house is full…

BONNIE PRITCHETT, CORRESPONDENT: That’s Rae Meekins, proprietor of Collective Home Mercantile, welcoming customers into a Houston home.

It isn’t her home. But today, she’s playing hostess. As an estate sale manager. Meekins is hired to root through, sort, clean, organize, price, tastefully display, and, hopefully, sell every material possession left behind by the deceased homeowner.

MEEKINS: So, the gentleman who lived here passed away like two years ago at 87. Spoke 7 or 8 languages, mastered multiple martial arts. Held multiple, multiple degrees…

All of those talents produced books, equipment, computers, and electronics, including a Commadore 64 game system circa 1982 in the original box. Add to that family mementoes from multiple generations. Meekins has a full house.

MEEKINS: There will be more out. This house literally keeps giving the gift of something…

Managing estate sales is a second career for the 58-year-old Meekins. Her previous job as an executive administrator with an oil company provided well for the single mom of three until she got laid-off. By then she had already been cultivating her lifelong appreciation for antiques and her affinity for organization. Her part-time gig as an estate sale manager turned full-time 13 years ago.

MEEKINS: So, it slowly, accidentally, thankfully, and as a curse – all in one – lead to this…

Meekins doesn’t always learn about the homeowner from the obituaries. Some clients she gets to meet.

MEEKINS: Probably, let’s say, four to five years ago most of my clientele were elderly that had passed. Or elderly that was being moved into more like a nursing home back then. Now, a lot of my clientele is all age groups that are just downsizing…

They’re moving to retirement or assisted living communities. One young family sold off their house, bought an RV and traveled the country and homeschooled their kids.

The term “estate sale” may bring to mind a manor surrounded by well-manicured gardens.

MEEKINS: Any home is someone’s estate…

With that in mind, Meekins acts accordingly: She expects her customers do likewise.

MEEKINS: I want people when they walk in the door to respect that fact that they’re shopping in a home…

That’s why her welcome spiel at the front door includes this caveat: 

MEEKINS: Be kind or be gone. You can’t be rude to other shoppers. You can’t be rude to my staff. I will escort you out of our sale. There’s no reason for it…

Her no-nonsense admonition contrasts with her genuine affection for and appreciation of her customers – even the problematic ones who want to nickel and dime her into lowering her prices.

MEEKINS: And I flat tell them, my priority is my client. I need to cater to my customers but my priority is my client and my client is who I answer to. So, they’re not going to hire me if I have a garage sale for them…

Most customers are looking for that “something special”:

WOMAN’S VOICE: We just find the neatest things that you would never think of…

They’re decorating their homes or looking for bargains on everyday housewares and tools. Others are collectors of, well, whatever.

VOICE: I said, I could use this ax. I have no idea why. It’s just going to sit in my garage. But it looks pretty in the garage…

Ok. One woman had someone else in mind as she picks through a salt and pepper shaker collection. Each shaker is paired with its mate in a plastic sandwich baggie.

WOMAN’S VOICE: [RUSTLING SOUND OF PLASTIC BAGS] It’s just the cutest stuff. I don’t know why I like it so much. They just have so much character to them. I always look for bride and groom. My mother-in-law collects them…

Most items at Meekins’ sales don’t have a price tag. Supplies, plus the time it takes to tag thousands of items isn’t cost effective. Twenty-five years of experience, and her antique appraiser certification helps her judge their value.

MEEKINS: I am a certified antiques appraiser. So, basically, that means I know a lot. But I know, do not know, a lot more…

To her knowledge, nothing sold at one of her estate sales has been showcased on the Antiques Roadshow.

Meekins’ relationship with her clients is more than transactional. Hence, her reluctance to deny requests for help that fall outside the scope of her contract.

MEEKINS: The hardest thing for me is saying “No.” You know my client hires me to take care of them and take care of things so they don’t have to. And it’s just my nature to be “Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it for you.”

The value of taking that one thing – the sale of a loved one’s worldly possessions – off a grieving person’s to-do list can’t be put on a price tag.

MEEKINS: Sometimes I get a client that calls me days after someone’s passing. You know they’re very emotionally vulnerable and they just need this done and they can’t deal with it…

Meekins loves what she does. But, she admits, she spends way too much time doing it and is beginning to appraise the value of a life well lived.

MEEKINS: So, I’m starting to feel some wear. And going at the rate I go at doesn’t allow me any time, hardly, with my family or with my grandkids. I’m working on trying to flipping that around a bit…

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Bonnie Pritchett in Houston.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, March 10th. 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. Here’s WORLD founder Joel Belz on the profound simplicity of God’s laws.

JOEL BELZ, FOUNDER: Recovering from a fractured leg has kept me hobbling around at home, nudging me to look for tasks I’d otherwise put off. That meant that for the first time in memory, I filed my tax returns before the end of January. It must have caught the IRS off guard, because federal and state offices promptly accepted my returns, confirmed my figures, and issued appropriate refunds.

The IRS may have simplified things a bit for the 2020 tax year. But it’s still an ugly, tedious process. And it reminds me how relatively simple God’s approach to rule-making has always been.

God’s rules tend to be few, simple, non-contradictory, and sufficient to stand the test of time without constant updating.

Man’s laws—even when they’re well intended—tend to be complex, lengthy, repetitive, full of contradictions, and constantly in need of revision and amendment.

Now, this isn’t just another swipe at the feds and the IRS. The contrast between God’s approach and man’s approach to writing rules is just as evident when you look at the bylaws of your church, your PTA, or your golf club. We’re just not very good at anticipating all the needs and eventualities that our weak human natures will give rise to. Just as soon as we think we have everything nailed down, someone’s evil inventiveness finds another loophole—and we have to come up with another list of amendments.

A major reason for this difference may be that we, unlike God, have limited power and look to the law as a means of controlling other people’s behavior. God, meanwhile, uses his law not so much to control us but to teach us his wisdom.

That’s why he started by expressing his desires for our behavior in 10 brief, broad strokes. Any one of these terse statements has a thousand applications. But he didn’t spell all that out with subtopics, footnotes, or a complicated decimal system. Instead, he left it simple—and memorable.

God starts with profound simplicity because he wants us to apply our hearts not to rote obedience but to the task of wisdom. Yes, he wants compliance. But he could have that any time he desires it. What he wants even more is for our remade hearts to think their way through, and then to desire fervently, the way of life he had designed for us. No legal library in the world has shelves long enough for all the books it would take to spell out such a code. 

So he gives us instead a few brief and clear starting points. If we incline our hearts in his direction, those basic points blossom out into a thousand new challenges we never thought of before. 

Congress and the Washington bureaucracy had better come to understand—and soon—that the production of stacks and stacks of regulations actually breeds contempt for the law. It’s tough to obey what you have no chance of comprehending.

I’m Joel Belz.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Facebook’s fight with Australia. 

We’ll tell you about the stakes in that battle.

And, Bethany Christian Services and adoptions into same-sex households … 

WORLD’s Jamie Dean joins us to discuss the ripple effects of that decision.

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.

In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

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.