The World and Everything in It: March 12, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. My name is Jonathan Christman. I live in Houston, Texas, and I'm a manager of business development for American Express. Augustin once said in Latin, he has all things, who has him who has all things. And indeed, if you have Christ, you have all things. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Some states seek to protect children from addictive social media. Today, efforts in Florida.

AUDIO: So as a parent who's concerned, I would say I take all the help I can get.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, explicit abuse images and video. We’ll hear from a panel of experts trying to rescue exploited children.

And pro-life moms respond to the pro-abortion prerogatives of the president.

AUDIO: Maybe instead of preparing for our baby to die, maybe we need to be preparing for her to live.

And World Opinions commentator Daniel Darling on the dark side of sports betting apps.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, March 12th. 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: It’s time now for news with Kent Covington.

WARNER: (gavel) Good afternoon. Thank you for appearing today before the Senate Intelligence committee’s annual worldwide threats hearing.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Senate threats hearing: Border » The world is a very dangerous place. And if anyone needed a reminder, they got it on Capitol Hill Monday. 

Intelligence and Pentagon officials testified about the top threats facing America.

GOP Sen. John Cornyn questioned FBI Director Christopher Wray:

JOHN CORNYN: I worry that among the people that are coming across the border that are evading law enforcement, that there are some people among those that mean to do us harm. Do you share that concern? 

WRAY: I do.

Wray added that there are “a whole host of threats that emanate from the border.”

WRAY: The vast majority of the fentanyl that’s killing Americans is, of course, coming from Mexico. And the vast majority of the precursors for that fentanyl is coming from China.

Senate security threats hearing: Chinas, Russia » China was another big topic of conversation as its communist government continues to gear up for a possible future war with the United States.

And the top Republican on the panel, Sen. Marco Rubio again raised concerns about a highly popular Chinese-owned social media app.

RUBIO: They happen to control a company that owns one of the world’s best artificial intelligence algorithms. It’s the one that’s used in this country by TikTok.

The U.S. government has banned TikTok on government devices. Some members of Congress continue to float the idea of banning the app in the United States altogether. Intelligence officials have cited national security concerns related to the app.

Officials also testified about threats from Russia, including a cyber-warfare arms race and Moscow’s push to weaponize space.

Netanyahu responds to Biden » Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his country must and will root out Hamas terrorists in the city of Rafah at the southern tip of Gaza. That despite protests from the White House. Netanyahu responded Monday to those who say Israel should stay out of Rafah.

NETANYAHU: This would be equivalent to saying, “Well, we’ll leave a quarter of the Nazi army in place, and we won’t go into Berlin, the last stronghold.”

President Biden has said he has a “red line” and doesn’t want to see an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah. Roughly half of the territory’s population is sheltering there to escape the war.

But Netanyahu says Rafah is the last remaining Hamas stronghold, and to leave Hamas intact within the city would mean losing the war.

Israel says it does have a plan to evacuate many civilians and minimize harm to non-combatants.

Biden Budget » President Biden has unveiled a $7.3 trillion budget proposal that he says lowers healthcare costs and provides tax relief to working families.

On the campaign trail in New Hampshire Monday, Biden pledged:

BIDEN: Nobody as long as I’m president who earns less than $400,000 – it’s a lot more than I ever made – will pay an additional penny in federal taxes. Nobody. Not a single cent. Nobody will pay a single penny more.

But critics say Biden’s plan to hike taxes on corporations would be a tax on all Americans, as the cost of those higher corporate taxes get passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Biden also wants to raise taxes on wealthy Americans, and claims the plan would reduce Washington’s overspending. But his budget would add almost another $2 trillion dollars to the national debt next year.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calls the budget an example of:

SCHUMER: The Democrats’ positive, proactive vision.

But Republicans call it another example of reckless spending.

While the budget highlights the president’s priorities, it is highly unlikely to be adopted by Congress.

Bob Menendez latest » New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez has pleaded not guilty to new additional charges, including obstruction of justice.

Defense attorney Lawrence Lustberg:

LUSTBERG: This trial’s coming up very quickly — I think unjustly quickly. But we’ll be ready, and I am confident in the outcome.

The senator and his wife have been charged with taking bribes of gold bars, cash and a Mercedes in exchange for political favors that benefited the Egyptian government.

Menendez says he is innocent on all charges.

Florida parental rights bill settlement » The state of Florida is issuing guidance and clarification with regard to a parental rights law that drew the ire of pro-LGBT activists. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Critics erroneously dubbed it the “don’t say gay” bill. The measure enacted two years ago is aimed at shielding young children from LGBT indoctrination in school.

In a settlement with plaintiffs who sued over the law, the state’s Board of Education will send instructions to every school district. It will clarify that Florida law doesn't bar discussion of LGBT people or prohibit teachers from identifying themselves as LGBT.

But the law will continue to prohibit alternative gender and sexual ideologies as part of any official instruction.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's office described the deal as a “major win” for the Parental Rights in Education Act. An attorney for the state said “We fought hard to ensure this law couldn’t be maligned in court, as it was in the public arena by the media and large corporate actors.”

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Sweden flag raised at NATO headquarters » Sweden’s flag is now flying at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Under a steady rain, two soldiers raised the blue and yellow Swedish flag on Monday as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg looked on.

STOLTENBERG: Thirty-two flags flying together. They represent 32 nations working for a common purpose; to protect 1 billion people and preserve peace.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson was also on hand for the ceremony.

He said Russia’s “brutal, full-scale invasion against Ukraine” convinced Sweden that joining the NATO alliance was “the only reasonable choice.”

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Keeping kids safe online in Florida. Plus, Pro-lifers respond to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 12th of March, 2024. This is WORLD Radio 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 on The World and Everything in It: age limits for social media.

Over the past few weeks, Florida lawmakers have been trying to craft a bill that would protect kids from the harms of social media and protect the law itself from legal challenge. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed the first version of the bill, and this week, he’s considering the revised version.

EICHER: If the new bill becomes law, it would make Florida the fifth state to pass a law limiting social media access for kids. Will it be the first to succeed against a court challenge?

WORLD Radio’s Mary Muncy has the story.

MARY MUNCY: 15-year-old Alivia Hendricks and her dad are sitting at their kitchen table in Florida talking about her screen time.

ALIVIA HENDRICKS: Sometimes I'm like, “Oh, I'll just like watch YouTube for like five minutes,” and then I end up just like sitting there. It's like 11 o'clock at night and I'm like, “Oh, I still have homework.”

Alivia is the fifth of seven kids and her dad, Tommy Hendricks, says he’s had a hard time keeping his kids away from bad things on the internet.

TOMMY HENDRICKS: We did the phone and the restrictions they could get around it. I mean, hands down every kid who wanted to Google a couple of videos on how to break your phone and get to it. So as a parent who's concerned, I would say I take all the help I can get.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to sign a bill that would protect kids under 16 from the so-called addictive features of some social media apps. The original bill made no expectations for parental permission, but this new bill allows parents to give their 14 and 15-year-old kids permission to access the apps.

So Alivia’s dad would have to decide whether he wants to go through a verification process so his daughter doesn’t lose access to the two social media apps on her phone, YouTube and BeReal.

DeSantis says he vetoed the original bill because it took away parents’ power to parent, and minors have First Amendment rights too.

RON DESANTIS: I think you gotta strike that proper balance when you’re looking at these things between policy that is helping parents get to where they want to go versus policy that is outright overruling parents.

The federal government already protects kids under 13 from sites targeting them that would use their data. That’s why most social media companies ask users to verify they are over 13—it shows the site is not directed towards them. But DeSantis says that law hasn’t been enforced, so Florida’s law would do that.

PATTI SULLIVAN: It focuses on the features that pull children in.

Patti Sullivan is a Florida parent and the State Director for Parental Rights Florida.

SULLIVAN: What it does do is it sets an age verification and requirements for social media platforms to protect children under 16.

The bill requires sites with certain “addictive features” like infinite scrolling or push notifications to choose a “reasonable” way to verify age or face fines up to $50,000 per violation.

It also requires any site that contains a significant amount of content that’s harmful to minors—like pornography—to use standard or anonymous age verification practices, things like uploading a driver’s license to a third party.

Lawmakers say parents shouldn’t be allowed to give their children access to addictive features and harmful content just like they can’t give their children access to other harmful things.

SULLIVAN: We don't allow parents to abuse their children. We do not allow parents to allow their children to get drunk. We do not allow parents to allow their children to do drugs. So there are certain areas that are hard lines.

Sullivan compares social media to big tobacco or vaping. Both products were marketed to minors before the harms were fully known, and then companies had to backtrack.

To that end, 41 states filed a lawsuit last year against Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta. They said the company knowingly used harmful, addictive features.

Some healthcare professionals say there can be harms connected with social media use like depression and anxiety. But other experts say social media doesn’t affect everyone in the same way, and that raises questions over whether there should be a blanket ban.

BOB CORN-REVERE: My name is Bob Corn-Revere, I'm Chief Counsel at FIRE: the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

Corn-Revere says whether Florida’s law will stand is not so much a question of whether certain features harm kids or whether they should be allowed to view adult content. It’s a question of whether that harm is great enough to limit everyone’s First Amendment rights, and that is a high standard.

When companies verify age, they have to verify everyone’s age, not just minors. And Corn-Revere says that puts a barrier between the public and a means of communication, even if it’s only meant to target certain features.

CORN-REVERE: When legislatures enact laws that impose restrictions, they create these one size fits, fits all scenarios. They impose blanket solutions, whether it's age verification or something else that affects everybody.

Previous bills limiting social media for minors in Utah, California, Ohio, and Arkansas have all been blocked by their state courts for free speech concerns. And so far, only California has appealed its case.

Florida lawmakers say their bill has a better chance at surviving legal challenges because it focuses on the addictive features and not the content of speech, but that remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Florida parents like Caroline Ross have to consider where the power of government ends and the responsibility of parents takes priority.

ROSS: It can help parents parent, and it can help you know them be able to have a little bit more of a breather knowing that their kid doesn't have access to it. But when your kid does have access to it at 16, then what's happening? I think it's deeper than social media. I think it's conversations.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: protecting children.

A quick word of caution. The following story is one in which parents may want to come back to later on out of the earshot of young children. You can fast forward about 6 minutes to continue with today’s program if you’re concerned about that. [PAUSE]

NICK EICHER, HOST: 50,000 children world-wide—and maybe more—are victims of a heartbreaking form of exploitation. It begins with an act of abuse, but then lives on because the perpetrator records the moment of abuse and uploads videos or photographs of the crime for sale. The dark web has made the spread of this material difficult to control.

REICHARD: Last week, former football star Tim Tebow was on Capitol Hill to bring attention to the problem. A panel of child-welfare advocates and law enforcement agents joined with him to ask Congress to do more about it. WORLD’s Paul Butler has the story.

TIM TEBOW: Why we're here today is to talk about the MVP…Not the MVP most of you are probably thinking, No…a more important MVP, the most vulnerable people.

PAUL BUTLER: Tim Tebow speaking to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance last Wednesday. He and three experts were there to testify about the growth of online distributed child sexual abuse material…known by the acronym: “C-SAM.”

Representative Andrew Biggs of Arizona is committee chairman and hosted the hearing:

ANDREW BIGGS: We must bring attention…to these innocent victims, these children who are living in the shadows, longing to be discovered and rescued. We must not shy away from hard topics and hard conversations, we have got to do better…

The internet has led to an exponential growth in the number of victims and spread of C-SAM as it provides an immediate distribution channel for the content. Jim Cole is a retired special agent with Homeland Security Investigations.

JIM COLE: The horrific rape on video by her own father and in minutes is available on a dark net Child Exploitation site with over a million members. In under an hour that child's worst moments are downloaded by thousands of offenders around the globe. In 24 hours that numbers 10s of thousands.

But technology alone is not to blame. Past attempts to address child sexual abuse led to policy with unintended consequences.

Congress passed the Child Abuse Prevention Act in 1974. It created a two track reporting structure for sexual abuse. Camille Cooper is an anti-trafficking advocate and vice president with the Tim Tebow foundation.

CAMILLE COOPER: If you are raped by your neighbor, your case goes to law enforcement. If you are raped by a parent or caretaker, your case goes to social services, and you get a social worker instead of a cop. This is a diversion program for child rapists. This law acted as an incentive to grow your own victims, so that you wouldn't go to jail. Most of the images are being produced by fathers, family members, and child offenders within the child's circle of trust.

Much of the current CSAM enforcement focuses on those who download or distribute the materials. But law enforcement is slowly changing its focus to do something to rescue the unknown children in the images and videos.

They’re no longer waiting for sexual abuse reporting from victims, but being proactive, searching for clues in the published materials that might tip off law enforcement as to the victim’s whereabouts. Once again Jim Cole:

COLE: This methodology emphasizes uncovering new material and focusing on innocuous clues hidden within the…multimedia content, shifting the priority to finding and safeguarding victims instead of just putting offenders in jail.

Artificial Intelligence has led to an increase in exploitative content—as creators can so easily create deep fakes and revenge porn. But AI has also proven to be an incredible tool for Cole and his team to analyze actual abuse images and video for clues.

COLE: We are buried in an ocean of data … that is just impossible for human beings to manually go through to find the relationships. To find the victims. To find the offenders. The goal of the victim identification lab at C3, our mission statement is to conduct advanced analytics on multimedia files of child sexual exploitation material to identify and rescue the child or children, identify and apprehend the offender or offenders, and identify and locate the crime scene.

Law enforcement and legislators are seeking assistance from big tech in the fight against CSAM. Many are inexplicably hesitant to help. John Madsen is board president for a law enforcement lobbying group:

JOHN MATSEN: And when platforms can turn a blind eye to the content, then that's troubling…If the same things were happening in a physical world environment, then we would shut that down. We would, there's all kinds of things that would happen. But because it's in a virtual space…parents are helpless to hold anyone accountable.

Non-government agencies like the Tim Tebow Foundation have helped identify and rescue hundreds of children working with the FBI, Homeland Security, and INTERPOL.

Last fall the U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan bill that would fund and reauthorize the Project Safe Childhood Act of 2006. It’s intended to counteract some of the problems of the 1974 law mentioned earlier, as well as develop better coordination on child sexual exploitation cases across federal, state, and local law enforcement. It is currently in committee in the U.S. House.

For Tim Tebow, he’s motivated by his faith to do what he can to raise awareness and support efforts to rescue these vulnerable and exploited children.

TEBOW: Every single one of those boys and girls is worth us answering the call and doing everything we can so that they can experience the faith, hope and love that they deserve. Not the bondage and torture that they're in right now. I believe if we build that rescue team, we will have a chance of getting to every one of those boys and girls. We have to do more than just talk about it.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Cole Brauer steered her sailboat to the dock, basking in the cheers, and on the 7th of March became the first American woman to sail solo around the world.

She posted the moment on Instagram.

SOUND: [Celebration]

Brauer was the only woman in the Global Solo Challenge, and—at age 29—the youngest.

She said one day very rough seas knocked her across her boat and cracked one of her ribs, but the five-foot-two sailor saw the whole thing as a radical test of self-sufficiency.

But having passed the test, she told the Today Show the 130-days alone taught her something else:

COLE BRAUER: Over this period of being alone, I’ve actually learned to appreciate the people that I have around me. And I didn’t think that’s what I was going to get out of this.

We’re meant to live in community!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, March 12. 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. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Giving women life-affirming help.

When we think of women who face pressure to abort, we usually think of single moms with unplanned pregnancies. Maybe it’s social or financial pressure pushing them to consider abortion.

EICHER: But women in another category are also vulnerable to pressure: those who want their babies, but whose doctors find a fetal abnormality and deliver a frightening prognosis.

President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address last week highlighted one mom in that situation and proposed abortion as the solution.

But some pro-lifers are working to help women in similar situations find real help. WORLD’s Leah Savas reports.

LEAH SAVAS: On Thursday night, a blonde woman wearing red lipstick sat in the House gallery with First Lady Jill Biden as the president told her story.

BIDEN: Joining us tonight is Kate Cox, a wife and mother from Dallas. She’s become pregnant again and had a fetus of a fatal condition. Her doctor told Kate that her own life and her ability to have [inaudible] children in the future were at risk if she didn’t act. Because Texas law banned her ability to act, Kate and her husband had to leave the state to get what she needed.

Biden used Cox’s story to criticize pro-life state laws and federal attempts to protect the unborn.

BIDEN: If you, the American people, send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again.

During the nearly three minutes Biden spent on the topic of abortion, he avoided actually using the word abortion. He also left crucial details out of Cox’s story. The main risks to Cox’s health were the same that many women face routinely in pregnancy. Having another baby after two C-sections could put her at risk for uterine rupture or a hysterectomy.

But her baby girl had trisomy 18, a genetic condition that meant the baby would likely die shortly after birth or live with severe disabilities. Cox wanted an abortion because doctors told her it would give her the best chance of having another child later.

Anticipating Biden would champion Cox’s story, some pro-lifers shared their own testimonies.

BEVERLY JACOBSON: We spent the first few weeks after getting our diagnosis preparing to bury our baby.

That’s Beverly Jacobson. She spoke at an online panel Students for Life Action hosted ahead of Biden’s address. Back in 2016, Jacobson was 18 weeks pregnant with her youngest child, Verity, when she got a phone call from her doctor. Verity had trisomy 18, or Edwards syndrome.

JACOBSON: I had no idea what those words meant. I had never heard of this condition, and that phone call, and then honestly the followup Google research showed very dire information.

But eventually Jacobson came across online support groups and started seeing pictures of children of all ages, even young adults, with the same condition. They were joyful and well-loved members of their families.

JACOBSON: And I started to realize that maybe instead of preparing for our baby to die, maybe we need to be preparing for her to live.

Today, Verity is seven years old. In her honor, Jacobson founded Verity’s Village, a support group for families who get scary prenatal diagnoses.

JACOBSON: So while we personally did not experience pressure to abort, many, if not most, of the families who come into the Verity’s Village community are constantly offered and even pushed toward abortion, sometimes appointment after appointment they encounter these narratives. At least in a couple of these cases we know about, mom was actually scheduled for an abortion before she even knew about her diagnosis.

One of the women who experienced that pressure was Kathryn Kerr. She also spoke on the panel.

KATHRYN KERR: So I had the bloodwork done. About two weeks later I get the phone call, and they said your baby has a one in seventeen chance of trisomy 13 or 18. When do you want to schedule your abortion?

Kerr learned about Verity’s Village and started connecting with other parents whose children had similar diagnoses.

KERR: Indiana lived for just over six weeks. And she was curious, and she was funny, and she smiled… and I would do it over and over again … for the memories and the joy she brought us, and the joy she still brings us.

Today, Kerr supports moms in similar situations through Verity’s Village. She helps them put together birth plans and process through the news. The group provides other resources such as counseling, pregnancy journals, and a guidebook with a chapter on preparing for loss.

But Verity’s Village is not the only support group of its kind. Here’s Andrea Trudden, vice president of communications for the pregnancy center organization Heartbeat International.

ANDREA TRUDDEN: We've worked with other organizations to put together prenataldiagnosis.org to connect people to support groups.

The website helps connect parents who receive a prenatal diagnosis with what Trudden called parent care coordinators from the organization Be Not Afraid.

TRUDDEN: They're kind of like social workers which are able to find all of the resources they gather all of the details and connect the parents to those resources depending upon where they are.

Trudden herself received a scary prenatal diagnosis with her oldest. Her daughter’s stomach, small intestine, spleen, and liver were all developing in her chest cavity, which meant her lungs wouldn’t have room to grow. But Trudden had doctors who worked hard to help her daughter. Today, her daughter is 15 years old and on her school’s rowing team.

TRUDDEN: The things that we can do with today's modern technology is fantastic. And so the fact that—it's kind of an interesting tension, because it's all the things that we can do to save lives. Yet this isn't a perfect child, therefore, you know what, why don't you abort and try again, it’s a very interesting juxtaposition there.

That’s the message Trudden and other pro-lifers will continue to combat as it comes from pro-abortion groups…and even the halls of Congress.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leah Savas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, March 12. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next: sports betting.

During the Super Bowl last month, gambling companies reported handling hundreds of millions of dollars in bets.

And with March Madness in college basketball starting next week, WORLD Opinions commentator Daniel Darling reminds Americans that gambling isn’t all fun and games.

DANIEL DARLING: Recently Saturday Night Live featured a sketch spoofing the false promises of sports betting:

CLIP: With so many games to bet on, you almost can't lose. But there’s a dark side. We all know a friend who struggles with online gambling. A friend who's on the verge of losing everything. His house, his family, his entire life. And now you can bet on exactly how he'll lose it all with Rock Bottom Kings.

Most gambling industry ads don’t want you to think about hitting rock bottom. But we shouldn’t be fooled: The casinos that brought in a record $11 billion in revenue off of live sports aren’t in this to make sports fans rich.

Today, you can hardly watch a game, listen to a sports podcast, or even read an article without being subject to sports betting ads. The ads almost always promise innocent fun, the ability to take your sports fandom to the next level. You can even bet on questions like who will be the first pick in the NFL draft or who will win awards such as NBA MVP. The game announcers cheerily champion various apps which are easily downloadable on smartphones, while athletes, retired or active, endorse gambling companies. All, of course, with mumbled references to websites that help with gambling addictions.

Christians who oppose gambling will always come across as curmudgeons, perhaps even among fellow believers. But Proverbs 13:11 warns that “Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.” This kind of get-rich-quick scheme is always unwise. As Proverbs 23 tells us, “When your eyes light on it, it is gone, for suddenly it sprouts wings, flying like an eagle toward heaven.”

According to the Mayo Clinic, gambling is highly addictive, stimulating “ the brain's reward system much like drugs or alcohol can, leading to addiction.” One study by Auburn University says the social impact of gambling is devastating, including bankruptcy, crime, domestic abuse, and even suicide. The National Council on Problem Gambling estimates that gambling addictions cost the U.S. $6.7 billion annually.

One only has to talk to pastors, school administrators, social workers, and first responders in a casino town. They see up close the broken families, abandoned children, and deaths of despair brought about by this widely celebrated vice. State after state have legalized sports gambling in order to supposedly help fund things like education. But future education for present despair is a bad bet.

As an avid sports fan, I agree with longtime NFL writer Peter King, who says, “In 10 years, we’ll have thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, in our society either broke or hopelessly addicted to making a bet. And the NFL is watching it happen and raking in the millions.”

In the meantime, faithful Christians would be wise to avoid sports gambling. Teach your young boys to root on their favorite sports teams without reaching for their digital wallets. Because, to quote Saturday Night Live: “They say the house always wins. Well, now you're the house, and your friend is probably going to lose his.”

I’m Daniel Darling.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: on Washington Wednesday we’ll talk with an expert about a Senate hearing on worldwide threats facing the U.S. And, the making of a modern-day composer. 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 records that… “Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ They answered him, ‘We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, “You will become free”?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.’” —John 8:31-34

Go now in grace and peace.

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