The World and Everything in It: March 26, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. My name is Nicholas Piotrowski, and I’m enjoying the program today from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I trust that wherever you are in God's world, you too will enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! How does a feared authoritarian allow a terror attack and remain a feared authoritarian? Possibly by changing the subject to Ukraine. We’ll talk about the challenge ahead for Vladimir Putin.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, how new emissions rules will affect the American market for cars.

And, one family’s race against time to bring home a little girl from China, after waiting four long years.

DIANNE CHINERY: So we were four days from leaving to get Mei. Everything was packed. The room was ready.

And WORLD commentator Maria Baer on the messiness of the family of God.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, March 26th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Time now for the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Israel cancels delegation visit after resolution vote » Israel has called off high level meetings in Washington as a crack in the relationship between the U.S. and Israel has grown into chasm.

That follows a UN Security Council vote demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.

CNN UN-RESOLUTION: The result of the voting is as follows: 14 votes in favor, zero vote against, one abstention.

That one abstention was the United States. The U.S. chose not to block the resolution. And that was a big departure from America’s stalwart defense of Israel at the UN.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met with U.S. officials today. And with the White House over his left shoulder, he told reporters …

GALLANT (translated): We have no moral right to stop the war while there are still hostages held in Gaza.

And he said anything less than the total defeat of Hamas puts Israel at greater risk.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in light of the Biden administration’s decision to sit out the crucial U.N. vote Israel is scrapping plans to send a delegation to Washington this week.

SCOTUS mifepristone » The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments today over the safety and availability of the abortion drug mifepristone. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: The FDA approved mifepristone for use back in 2000. It then greatly loosened safety rules surrounding the drug’s availability in 2016. And it did so once again three years ago.

Now, a group of pro-life doctors, called The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine say the FDA made a big mistake and that mifepristone is now far too easy to obtain. They’re challenging the agency on its lax safety standards surrounding the drug.

Justices will consider whether the FDA was right to roll back the safeguards and whether the pro-life doctors have standing to question the agency’s decisions.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Moscow theater gunmen » The four men charged with the massacre at a Moscow theater have been identified as citizens of Tajikistan, the poorest of the ex-Soviet states. The country is also rife with religious tensions.

Hard-line Islamists were one of the main forces opposing the government in a 1990s civil war that devastated the country.

The Moscow massacre killed roughly 140 people. The accused gunmen were loyal to ISIS in neighboring Afghanistan.

Trump bond » Monday was supposed to be the deadline for Donald Trump to fork over nearly half a billion dollars as part of a legal judgment in a New York civil fraud case.

But the former president got an extension.

TRUMP: I greatly respect the decision of the appellate division, and I will post either $175 million dollars in cash or bonds or security or whatever is necessary.

$175 million is the new amount of the bond he’ll have to pay within the next 10 days. As long as he does that, he can hold off on paying a nearly half-billion-dollar judgment while he appeals that judgment.

A five-judge appellate court panel issued that decision yesterday.

Trump thanked the court, but called the civil case against him a disgrace.

TRUMP: It’s a shame what’s happening to this country. This is election interference.

The former president strongly denies any wrongdoing.

Border record » Yet another record broken at the U.S.-Mexico border. Border officials reported roughly 190,000 migrant encounters there last month. That’s the highest number ever in the month of February.

That shattered the previous record of 166,000 set two years ago. And the new total does not include the untold thousands of migrants who evaded detection.

The White House says the blame lies with House Republicans for rejecting a Senate border bill. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre:

PIERRE: It would have been the toughest and fairest action on immigration in decades.

But GOP Sen. Bill Hagerty said President Biden didn’t need any help from Congress to create the border crisis. He asserts Biden did so with executive powers simply by reversing Donald Trump’s border policies.

HAGERTY: Biden is the one that did away with the migrant protection protocols. He did away with building the wall. Catch and release he’s brought back. It’s just amazing what he’s done.

Republicans say Biden could curb the border crisis immediately, but reinstalling the Trump-era policies he stamped out three years ago.

Nigeria kidnap victims returned » In Nigeria, security forces have rescued nearly half of the 280 students kidnapped two weeks ago just days before a ransom deadline.

Nigerian Army General MLD Saraso:

SARASO: The abducted Kuriga schoolchildren were safely rescued after spending about 16 days in captivity.

But government officials did not release details about the other missing students.

Authorities confirmed that one teacher died in captivity.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Analyzing Friday’s terror attack in Moscow. Plus, adopting from China in 2024.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 26th of March, 2024.

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

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. First up: terror in Moscow.

On Friday evening, gunmen entered a concert hall in a suburb of Russia’s capital city. They opened fire and set off explosives, ultimately killing more than 130 people. Russian authorities suggested that Ukraine might be behind the attack, and threatened to take retribution all the way to Kiev.

EICHER: Events took a turn when an Islamic terror group with roots in Afghanistan and Iran took responsibility for the attack.

What does this mean for Russia and the rest of the world?

Joining us now to discuss it is Will Inboden. He was a member of the National Security Council under George W. Bush, and now teaches at the University of Florida.

REICHARD: Will, good morning!

INBODEN: Good morning. Great to be with you, Mary.

REICHARD: So many questions come to mind, but let’s begin with the group claiming responsibility Islamic State Khorasan Province, in northeastern Iran, known as ISIS-K. Why is it significant that they’re the ones behind the attack?

INBODEN: Mary, ISIS-K, Islamic State Khorasan, as you specified, is a spin-off group from the earlier iteration of the Islamic State that had taken over large swaths of Iraq and Syria about about 10 years ago after the American pull out from from Iraq. And they have targeted American and Western targets and interests a number of times. The most infamous and painful one for Americans is of course, the Islamic State Khorasan, ISIS-K, was behind the the bombing that killed 13 American troops during our disastrous pull-out from Afghanistan in 2021, at the Kabul airport. They are very nasty group. They target Americans, they target other Muslims who don't share their, you know, extremist version of Sunni jihadism, and other Europeans. They are behind an attack in Paris several years ago. They are buying an attack at a concert in the UK in 2017 when I happened to be there at the time. There have also been a number of ISIS-K terrorist plots foiled and caught in the last few months in Europe, and those have been embarrassing for ISIS-K. So this may be their effort to tell Europe and the United States, we're still here, we're still a potent force, you need to, you need to fear us. The real worries are that they might try to stage a large scale attack in the Paris Olympics this summer. That's something we need to watch for and be vigilant about.

REICHARD: Even though ISIS-K claimed responsibility, Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to imply that Ukraine is culpable. What’s he trying to do?

INBODEN: Well, this attack is a real embarrassment for Putin and a huge lapse on his part, right? He is, you know, the dictator ruling Russia. He has recently been,“ reelected” to a new term. You know, he was the only candidate it was, of course, a managed election. And he's made his, one of his main calling cards trying to project Russian strength and protect the Russian people. And so for a horrible attack like this to happen on his watch, it's a calamitous lapse in Russian security protocols. And Putin is not wanting to take responsibility for his mistakes, and so he immediately wants to blame it on Ukraine, which is absurd. You know, Ukraine had absolutely nothing to do with this. ISIS-K has been opposed to Russia for a number of years, because they know that Russia supports the Taliban and Afghanistan, which is one of their enemies, and especially the Russians support the Assad regime in Syria, who is also one of ISIS-K's enemies. And so this is their way of striking back at Putin, for his support for Assad and for the Taliban.

REICHARD: You know, another interesting aspect of this story is that the U.S. warned Russia about an impending terrorist attack just days before it happened. Explain this “duty to warn policy”... why warn an adversary about a coming attack from another adversary?

INBODEN: Yeah, this is a part of the the code of ethics, if you will, and professionalism, of counterterrorism and national security, which is there are plenty of, you know, nations out there, who we would regard as our enemies. Russia would be one, China is another, Iran, of course, is another. But in all those cases in recent history, the American intelligence community, if we learn of a terrorist attack against one of those countries, we will warn them about it. We don't want them to hurt Americans, but we certainly don't wish their innocent civilians harm as well. And in turn, there's an expectation of reciprocity that these countries, if they learn about a plot against the United States, that they will let us know also. So in that sense, it is both a moral duty but it's also in our self-interest, the principle of reciprocity there. The United States had even warned Iran a few months ago about the ISIS-K attack against a number of Iranian officials, even though those Iranian officials are enemies of the United States and had been responsible for killing Americans. So that shows, you know, how far we take that principle. In this case, Putin scoffed at it, he ignored it. He, you know, was was very dismissive of it. And so in that sense, he bears even more responsibility for ignoring the warning and letting this awful attack happen, which of this report has killed 133 innocent Russian civilians.

REICHARD: Final question here: what might Putin do next?

INBODEN: You know, tough to say. He is often unpredictable. I wouldn't be surprised if he uses this as an excuse to target more civilian targets in Ukraine. You know, that still continues to be his main focus, of trying to conquer Ukraine. He knows the United States is currently divided and has not yet passed an additional weapons package for  more aid for Ukraine, so he may want to exploit that. So, Putin does have a history over the last 25 years of taking terrorist attacks against Russian targets and Russian people and turning that to use them for his own own purposes and an advantage. So it's hard to predict what he might do but that's what I would watch for is more attacks against Ukrainian civilians.

REICHARD: Will Inboden is a professor at the University of Florida and a former member of the National Security Council. Will, thank you for your time!

INBODEN: Thank you. Great to be with you as always.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: climate policy and perhaps your next new car.

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency released new tailpipe emissions rules—aimed at cutting emissions in half in American cars by 2032.

How so? Basically, by cutting out the tailpipe. Under the new rules electric vehicle sales would make up half of all new cars sold, meaning as a share of market. They’d have to jump sevenfold in eight years.

REICHARD: The Biden administration touts the new rules as a win for climate policy… but what are the trade-offs?

WORLD’s Mary Muncy has the story.

MARY MUNCY: Linda Henderson owns a fuel station and convenience store in Louisiana. Last year, some people were trying to convince her to install an electric vehicle charging station.

LINDA HENDERSON: It's really expensive to do that… So I just decided that I really wasn't sure, since—we live in a rural area, that it might be better if we decided for ourselves whether we thought EV, electric vehicles, were what they said.

When she says rural, she means 100-miles-from-a-city rural. So Henderson and her husband bought a Tesla Model X.

They soon realized that its 350-mile range was only for optimal conditions, meaning they often came home with a low battery. Henderson says she loves the Tesla as a car. But…

HENDERSON: It's just that being all electric has has drawbacks for us. I think if we lived in a urban area, it would be a lot more practical for us.

Henderson decided to wait on putting in the charger.

But the Biden administration is trying to push up the timeline of Americans going electric by issuing new emissions standards.

To meet the standards, just over half of all cars sold in the U.S. would have to be electric within eight years. And about 10 percent would have to be plug-in-hybrids.

The new timeline is slower than the Administration proposed last year, but still meets similar goals. The old timeline faced pushback from auto workers, manufacturers, and car salesmen who said they couldn’t get EVs off their lots.

MARLO LEWIS: Ford has lost $4.7 billion on its electric vehicle program… just in 2023.

Marlo Lewis is a fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

LEWIS: It translates into something like $64,000 a vehicle that Ford has been losing on each EV it sells in the last year.

The EPA says any extra costs to manufacturers and consumers will be offset by billions in savings from limiting natural disasters due to climate change and health problems due to poor air quality, among other things.

But there’s a problem.

LEWIS: The EPA refuses to calculate what the actual mitigation of climate change these these standards will accomplish. In other words, how much warming will this avert? How much sea level rise will this avoid? They don't say. They declined to say.

The EPA estimates its rules would avoid 700 tons of carbon emissions. However, the numbers the EPA provides don’t take into account things like more strain on the power grid or more mining for the minerals needed for batteries.

LEWIS: We're dealing with changes in the world that are, for all practical purposes, infinitesimal. These are phony benefit benefits. An effect that cannot be experienced by human beings or other living things is a benefit in name only.

So, are auto manufacturers likely to go along with this?

Well, if they don’t comply, they could be hit with extra costs and fines. And under current law, they can’t challenge it directly. But with recent Supreme Court precedent from the 2022 case West Virginia v. EPA, that could be open to litigation.

LEWIS: Congress has not clearly authorized the EPA to say we think it's better that there be no internal combustion engine vehicles, and therefore we are going to phase them out.

It’s also possible that if Donald Trump is re-elected, he would reverse the EPA’s emissions policy like he did with Obama-era rules. However, Lewis says that any rollbacks could take a while, and Trump would likely be sued by climate activists and auto manufacturers who have invested heavily in EV manufacturing.

Whether automakers can meet EPA standards and get a return on their investment will be determined by consumers like Linda Henderson.

HENDERSON: Pure electric to me is not as practical as it is made out to be. Yeah, I was, I was really impressed by all the commercials on television, you know. They make it look like it's so much fun and so glamorous, but it's not really, it's not really quite that way.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

AUDIO: [(Countdown in French) Trois, deux, un…]

NICK EICHER, HOST: Yes, it’s Paris. No, it’s not the Olympics.

It’s a footrace, as much about balance as it is about speed. The goal is to get a flaky French croissant, a coffee cup, and a glass of water on a server tray from Point A to Point B a mile and a quarter away.

The historic Bistro Waiters’ Race, a tradition going back to 1914.

The Mayor of Paris says the race celebrates the Bistro lifestyle.

AUDIO: (TRANSLATED) It's a place where we live, where we come for work, study, meet people, love or argue. We really want to show our Parisian way of life to the world. 

The city’s preparing to host the summer games, and the restaurants likewise are getting ready for more than a million visitors.

The best times were about half the pace of world record speed walking, but the speed walkers didn’t have to worry about spilling.

Bon travail!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, March 26th. So glad you’ve turned to WORLD Radio to start your day! Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: adoption.

For decades, thousands of Americans each year added to their families by adopting children from China. But that came to a sudden stop in recent years

REICHARD: And that left some families waiting to find out if they’d get to bring home children they were in the process of adopting. WORLD’s Lindsay Mast has the first of a two-part story about one of those families.

SOUND: [Orphanage activity]

LINDSAY MAST: In a Chinese orphanage a little girl with a jet-black pixie cut sits on a tumbling mat alone. A video shows her using her left hand to do everything– playing with toys, taking off a sock. Her name is Mei. And for more than four years, an American family half a world away has loved her and wanted to call her their daughter.

DIANNE CHINERY: Look at those eyes. Who wouldn't want to look into those eyes every day? You know?

Dianne Chinery and her husband Jeff have been married for more than three decades. They have four biological children and already had three more from China when they decided to adopt Mei. Those other adoptions had all gone smoothly. This one would be another story entirely.

Dianne first saw Mei, a then-6-year-old with an impish grin in 2018.

Jeff was still in China finalizing their son David’s adoption when Dianne saw her picture

CHINERY: I said “Jeff, there's a little girl, she's got some more needs, more severe needs than what we have but there's something there.” And he said, “Well, let me get home.”

Those more severe needs included Cerebral palsy–limited use of her right side. She was also non-verbal, and possibly autistic.

They prayerfully moved forward. They gained travel approval and got ready for Mei’s arrival. They bought clothes, a doll, and things to comfort her as she made her way to the U.S. with these strangers who love her.

CHINERY: So we were four days from leaving to get Mei. Everything was packed, gifts for the dignitaries were bought. Her clothes. The room was ready.

And then…

NEWS REPORT: New at 12:30 Several airlines including British Airways and Seoul airlines have suspended service to China with others to follow suit.

SOUND: [Static]

NEWS REPORT: An erie new video today shows what were once thriving streets in Wuhan China are now completely empty.

SOUND: [Static]

NEWS REPORT: This virus clearly can spread between humans.

It was January, 2020. The trip was delayed. That’s what they thought at first. That delay, though, turned into years of waiting. They weren’t alone.

Debbie Price is Executive Director of Children’s House International Adoptions. She says the pandemic stoppage left hundreds of families and children in limbo:

DEBBIE PRICE: It's just a shock. I think it's a shock to everybody. It's sad for those of us who work with children, because it's not that there's no children that need homes.

For much of the last 30 years, China was a top source of international adoptions for Americans. In the decade prior to the pandemic, Americans adopted more than 20,000 children from China.

Since the pandemic? The State Department reports zero adoptions for 2021 and 2022. Intercountry adoptions between China and the United States remain suspended.

CHINERY: We put it on a shelf. As in, we put part of our hearts on a shelf in a box and said, “Okay, we have to move on. But we know you're there.”

The family’s early time with their other children from China had been marked by the kids’ sometimes complex medical needs. One had needed craniofacial surgery. Another had digestive problems.

AUDIO: Hey Ev? What are you doing?

With those problems resolved, the kids started to grow. Their English improved. Dianne continued homeschooling the whole crew.

The family’s oldest girls both married and settled in different states. One son moved away, too. The house that Mei would’ve known slowly got quieter. The adopted children went from learning to ride bikes to learning Chemistry, making their own lunches.

AUDIO: Here you go big brother… Oh yes, peppers.

The years passed with no word from China. Adoptions were still on hold. The family received just two updates on Mei–one when she had a seizure in 2020.

Then, one day last October—news. A glimmer of hope. The family was told to fill out a questionnaire, updating their information. If approved, they’d be invited to come get Mei.

But now there was a new problem.

CHINERY: The person at our adoption agency said, I think that's going to be a deal killer.

Last spring, Dianne received a breast cancer diagnosis. She had surgery, but didn’t need chemo or radiation. Still, a recent diagnosis usually means rejection. There didn’t seem much point to rush to get the usual adoption paperwork done.

They were wrong.

Just before Christmas, they got approval to go get Mei, but they’d need to be there by January 29th. They needed visas, new fingerprints. They bought plane tickets. Refundable ones. The only thing that was certain was this: the turnaround would be almost impossibly tight.

CHINERY: We're either approaching a finish line or we're approaching a starting line and we don't know which end of the race. We don't know where we are. But two weeks from today, we’ll know.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lindsay Mast in Tucker, Georgia.

EICHER: You can hear the rest of the Chinery’s story on tomorrow’s program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday March 26. 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: WORLD Opinions commentator Maria Baer on dealing with sin in the Church.

MARIA BAER: On a recent episode of the Armchair Anonymous podcast, one woman told a story of a man at an Alcoholics Anonymous or AA meeting who took up a collection for a kickball league. After gathering the cash, he proceeded, in full view, to stuff it into his backpack. The group kicked him out. But the woman seemed almost amused, like a mom shaking her head at her kids’ harmless mischief. These addicts and their hijinks, am I right?

My mind wandered. What if that had happened at church?

There are many similarities between church and AA, even beyond the not-so-subtle “Higher Power” stuff. Like church, AA is also supposed to welcome everyone. People are supposed to share deep, uncomfortably intimate and unflattering details of their lives with a group of people that might not have much in common with outside this meeting. They gather together often because they know that bad habits thrive in isolation, and that people who are trying to withstand temptation need community, accountability, and radical honesty.

However, after several high-profile scandals, Christians seem to have lost that kind of realistic view of the Church. Rather than accepting conflict as an inevitable part of doing life together, we’re often caught off guard by it. “Church hurt” has become its own category of pain, made worse because it bursts the lovely bubble we thought encompassed the Christian life.

On the one hand, Christians are called to a higher standard of behavior. Paul describes the fruits of the Spirit–love, joy, patience, kindness–not as character traits we’re lucky to have at birth but as virtues we should cultivate. By the help of the Holy Spirit, those of us who enter the fold as liars should stop lying, those who were thieves should stop stealing, and those with a bad temper or a judgmental heart should be different.

But imagine a man taking up a collection at church and then pocketing the cash. How would this story be told? As disappointing hijinks or a sign of toxic problems festering in the Church?

The internet age we live in makes us vulnerable to the allure of “exposing” all the hypocrisy we find inside the Church. Some of us build entire online media brands around doing just that, implying that the cause of sin is always bigger than human nature. It’s a theology problem or it’s the fault of a certain Bible translation or a denomination or Christian publisher.

To be clear, it’s reasonable for a church to ask someone who steals money and is unrepentant to leave. But we shouldn’t act like something must be fundamentally wrong when we encounter sin within our walls.

Most people who show up to an AA meeting don’t need to be convinced they have a sin problem. Christians should show up to church the same way, but with an even deeper hope. We don’t need to expect perfection or even social grace from all of our brothers and sisters all of the time. Paul told the Ephesians that all believers are members of the “household” of God. “Household” means family, which includes all the messy, lovely baggage that word carries.

I’m Maria Baer.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: House Speaker Mike Johnson got government funding to the finish line, but at what cost? We’ll talk about the path forward on Washington Wednesday. And, the second part of our story of a family’s second chance to bring their daughter home from China. 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.

After Jesus ascended into heaven, Peter said to the crowd: “‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.’ And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation.’” Acts 2:38-40

Go now in grace and peace.

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