The World and Everything in It: March 27, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like you and me. My name is Chris Elliott. I am presently serving as a teacher in a small Bible Institute on the shores of Lake Kivu in Rwanda. My wife Dolores and I are great fans of the Wednesday World Tour by Onize Ohikere reporting from Abuja, Nigeria. We hope that you enjoy today's broadcast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! House Republicans slogged through another budget year. But with an even slimmer majority going forward, the road ahead is no easier.

AMODEI: Am I happy with where we’re at, am I mission accomplished? Absolutely not.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Washington Wednesday in just a few minutes followed by World Tour. Also today, part two in our story about China halting adoptions…and leaving families in limbo.

PRICE: They have the picture. They have the information, they were just waiting for the process to take its course. And so they can't give up on what they consider their child.

And getting at the root cause of Gen Z anxiety.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, March 27th. 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 with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Bridge Collapse » A search and rescue in Maryland has become a search and recovery effort after the Francis Scott Key bridge crumbled into the river below on Tuesday.

Maryland Secretary of State Police, Ronald Butler:

BUTLER: At this point, we do not know where they are, but we intend to give it our best effort to help these families find closure.

Six construction workers went missing after a cargo ship lost power and slammed into a bridge support, triggering the collapse. They are now presumed dead.

The incident could have been even more tragic.

The ship’s crew issued a mayday call moments before the crash, enabling authorities to limit traffic on the bridge.

President Biden says Maryland will get any federal help it needs to rebuild.

BIDEN: Around 850,000 vehicles go through that port every single year. And we're gonna get it up and running again as soon as possible.

But it will likely take years to rebuild the bridge.

AUDIO: [Pro-abortion demonstrators]

SCOTUS on mifepristone » Demonstrators gathered outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday as the justices once again take up an abortion case.

This time, the high court heard arguments over the abortion drug mifepristone. The justices are weighting whether the FDA ran afoul of federal law when it approved distribution of the drug by mail without a doctor’s visit.

Attorney Erin Hawley with the Alliance Defending Freedom argued:

HAWLEY: On the merits, FDA failed to comply with basic EPA requirements. In 2021, it eliminated the initial in-person visit based on data it says elsewhere is unreliable. And in 2016, it failed to consider or explain the cumulative effects of its wholesale removal of safeguards. These actions fall far short of what the APA requires. This court should affirm.

But Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said the FDA was acting within its authority.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor:

SOTOMAYOR: The problem with all drugs is there are complications in virtually all of them.

PRELOGAR: Yes.

SOTOMAYOR: And at what level the cost benefit analysis tells you to stop prescribing something is a very difficult question, isn’t it?

PRELOGAR: And that’s a question that Congress has entrusted to the FDA.

It’s estimated that mifepristone was used in nearly two-thirds of all U.S. abortions last year.

The court is expected to issue a ruling on the case by this summer.

Israel-U.S. » Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin hosted his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, at the Pentagon Tuesday.

AUSTIN: Mr. Minister, I look forward to discussing how we can dramatically and urgently ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

It was the first high level meeting since the Biden administration chose not to block a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.

AUSTIN: Now, we continue to share the goal of seeing Hamas defeated. So we'll discuss alternative approaches to target Hamas elements.

Hamas has just rejected the latest cease-fire proposal. And Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer said that’s not surprising. He added, “They think they’re going to get a cease-fire without giving up the hostages because that’s what the resolution said.”

The measure called on Hamas to release Israeli hostages. But crucially the resolution demanded that Israel immediately lay down arms regardless of whether Hamas releases the roughly 100 captives it’s still holding.

Gallant told reporters:

GALLANT: Over the past six months, we have been fighting a way against a brutal terror organization, Hamas, which is the ISIS of Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predicted that the Biden administration’s decision not to block the resolution would hurt cease-fire talks and efforts to bring the hostages home. And he called it a clear retreat from America’s prior position.

In response, Netanyahu canceled plans to send a delegation to Washington this week.

Assange » Wikileaks founder Julian Assange got a reprieve as he fights possible extradition to the United States on espionage charges.

A British court said Tuesday that the UK won’t turn him over to U.S. authorities until they can guarantee that Assange will not receive the death penalty.

His wife, Stella Assange said the case against her husband should be dropped.

ASSANGE: This case serves no purpose other than to intimidate journalists all around the world, not just here, not just in the United States. It is sending a chilling effect.

But the U.S. government says Julian Assange’s actions went well beyond those of a journalist. He is accused of playing an active role in stealing classified military documents in 2010, not just passively receiving and publishing them.

The United States has three weeks to assure UK courts that it would not execute Assange for espionage.

Visa, Mastercard Agreement » Two credit card giants just agreed to settle in one of the biggest antitrust agreements in U.S. history. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

AUDIO (MC commercial): There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s Mastercard.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Mastercard and Visa just reached a $30 billion-dollar settlement agreeing to lower their swipe fees for five years. Those are costs that consumers usually don’t see. Merchants pay those fees every time a customer uses a Visa or Mastercard instead of cash.

But those costs are passed along to consumers, usually in the form of slightly higher prices.

An antitrust lawsuit accused the companies of colluding to keep swipe fees inflated.

The new agreement still needs court approval, and merchant groups may oppose it, as some say a 5-year reduction of fees is not enough.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Taliban stoning women » The Taliban's supreme leader says his de facto Afghan government will re-implement the practice of stoning women to death for adultery.

Public executions, including stoning, have resumed since the Taliban's takeover in August 2021, following a chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country.

The group says women’s rights as defined by the West violate its interpretation of Muslim Sharia Law.

A 2023 UN report revealed that at least 175 people received death sentences and at least 37 of them were stoned.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: The way forward for House Republicans on Washington Wednesday. Plus, World Tour.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 27th of March, 2024.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s Washington Wednesday.

The federal government is now funded through September…but some House Republicans are frustrated with the way the final agreement came together. The bill is similar to previous end-of-year spending deals: thousands of pages of spending priorities unveiled at the last minute, and this one didn’t address border security the way many Republicans had hoped.

Discretionary spending totaled $1.66 trillion dollars, the key word discretionary. The total spending level, per the Congressional Budget Office, $6-1/2 trillion dollars.

REICHARD: So what did Republicans take away from fiscal year 2024? And what can they do better in 2025? WORLD’s Washington bureau reporter, Leo Briceno, reports.

LEO BRICENO, REPORTER: With spending done for the year, Republicans are already looking ahead for different results in 2025.

AMODEI: Am I happy with where we’re at, am I mission accomplished? Absolutely not.

I caught Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada outside the Capitol. He’s one of the 12 Republican negotiators who helped shape this year’s spending legislation. My question to him: how can House Republicans score conservative policy wins when Democrats control the Senate and the White House?

Amodei believes part of that answer is getting right back to work after the House reconvenes on April 9th.

AMODEI: So when you say what have we learned from the Senate, it’s like you know what? This has been going on since John Boehner, that I was here for. And so it’s like hey, looking down the street for what’s coming up at the end of this next cycle, there’s something you need to be doing now.

John Boehner was the House speaker from 2011 to 2015. Boehner—like Johnson—struggled to rein in government spending with divided government.

By the way, the squealing you’re hearing in the background is the metal security barriers going down as lawmakers drive away from the House of Representatives.

AMODEI: And so if you want results, then I’m interested in what your plan is to change things that will get us some results. In terms of doing all 12 bills, doing them transparently, blah blah blah, I’m like that’s all good stuff. I love it. But don’t turn it into “Hey, the cure is worse than the sickness.”

He’s talking about the 12 appropriations bills—the individual pieces of legislation that are supposed to fund the government. For the past 40 years, Congress has failed to pass them on time—instead passing last-minute omnibus packages that fund the government all in one go.

This year, House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to get away from the omnibus but only partially succeeded. Instead of passing one giant bill, he passed two smaller ones.

For Conservative Republicans like Virginia Representative Bob Good, that change isn’t good enough.

GOOD: I don’t think it’s significant that it’s two minibuses instead of one omnibus. I think the Speaker is committed to trying to pass 12 bills out of the house that reflect Republican priorities and I hope will cut our spending. But when the Senate says no—and they will say no—I don’t know what will be different if we’re not willing to walk away from the Senate and say here’s our deal, take it or leave it.

Representative Good is also the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, and he wants the House to take a tougher stand in the future.

The issue with that approach is that it invites a government shutdown—or at least a partial one. And in the past, shutdowns haven’t led to decreased spending, but backpay for government workers once funding is resolved.

Some Republicans don’t believe Speaker Johnson has the political spine or the negotiating chops to go there, instead settling for more marginal negotiations. That’s left at least one Republican calling for his job: Georgia representative, Marjorie Taylor Green.

GREENE: The Republican speaker of the house handed over every ounce of negotiating power to Chuck Schumer and the Democrats and went ahead and funded the government. This was our leverage. This was our chance to secure the border and he didn’t do it.

On Friday, Green introduced a motion to vacate. If it came to the floor and a majority of the House voted for it, they would remove Johnson from the speakership. For now, Greene is holding off on bringing her motion to a vote.

GREENE: I’m not saying it won’t happen in two weeks or it won’t happen in a month or who knows when. But I am saying the clock has started. Tt’s time to choose a new speaker…[reporters interrupt]

Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee is one of the eight Republicans who voted last October to remove Johnson’s predecessor, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. I asked Burchett if he would vote to remove a second speaker.

BURCHETT: Today I won’t. I just want to see who we got. Who’s going to be better? That’s what I want to find out.

BRICENO: You want to wait until you have a suitable alternative, is that what you mean?

BURCHETT: Yeah, if we find somebody that I think will do a better job and can get elected, yeah.

REPORTER: Will you be able to find a better option?

BURCHETT: I don’t know. I don’t know, let’s see what happens when we get back.

For now, most House Republicans would prefer not to repeat the drama of choosing a new Speaker. And some, like Arizona Representative Eli Crane, say that Johnson has been more up front about what’s going on than McCarthy was.

CRANE: Not a ton has changed, at least in how this place works. Having leadership that is honest and transparent I think is always a big deal.

Reporting for WORLD. I’m Leo Briceno.

REICHARD: Leo, before you go, I’ve got a few follow up questions.

Congressman Amodei mentioned a lot is coming in the next funding cycle. What are some of the biggest pieces Congress will be working on?

BRICENO: So for now, I think they're going to take a break from government spending. Speaker Johnson has hinted at the fact that he might bring up the Ukraine package that's being discussed in the House, that will include some Israel aid, some Taiwan aid. But with that, also come considerations for the southern border, as Republicans have repeatedly stressed that they're not really willing to move on that Ukraine aid without first also doing something on the border. So you can expect that to be a part of the conversation there. Additionally, in April, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA power will expire. This is a really controversial tool that gives the intelligence agencies the power to look at private communications on any device, basically. And in theory, it's only ever supposed to be used on non-Americans. But recent reports and disclosures from inside the intelligence community have really revealed that that's not what's been going on that the tool has been abused to spy on Americans, to spy on political campaigns, to spy on journalists. And so Congress really wants to make sure that they're reforming that in such a way that maintains the power so that the intelligence community can do its job, but that also protects the privacy of individual citizens. So expect those all to be on the horizon. And believe it or not, Congress will probably have to, in short order—maybe in the next month or so— get back on the horse and start working on appropriations for 2025, which are due in September, by the way, so it's not like we have a long runway there.

REICHARD: One of the challenges the House Speaker faces is his shrinking majority. In 2022, it was just five, and with some more resignations it won’t be long before it’s actually just one. Leo, what role do you think all of this intra-party conflict plays into members just packing up and going home?

BRICENO: I can't say for sure. I'd imagine that's a big part of it for some of them. Patrick McHenry in particular, right. He was McCarthy's right hand man. Seeing his his speaker go home out of, kind of out of, being really pushed out of the role, I can't imagine that that's a reason for him to stick around. But I mean, if you look at the numbers of who's going out, there's an alarming number of moderates that are leaving, like McHenry, influential moderates. But I think it really does remain to be seen what is is there a common underlying factor to all these departures. And I don't think that's really a question we have really good answers to yet. But I suspect that has to be at least a part of the picture.

REICHARD: Leo Briceno covers Congress for World’s Washington Bureau. Thanks for this report!

BRICENO: Sure, absolutely. Thank you, Mary.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Ohikere.

AUDIO: [Singing protesters]

Senegal election — Today’s roundup starts in Senegal, where opposition contender Bassirou Diomaye Faye emerged as the country’s new president on Monday.

AUDIO: [Chanting supporters]

Official results are still pending, but former Prime Minister Amadou Ba, the ruling party’s candidate and the other top contender, conceded defeat.

FAYE: [Speaking French]

The 44-year-old Faye says here that he will work on national reconciliation, reducing the cost of living, and relaunching public policies.

Riots returned to the streets of Senegal after President Macky Sall announced he would delay the vote initially scheduled for February to the end of the year. Sall later announced the March election date, hoping to quell the growing unrest.

Sunday’s election also follows months of opposition protests and arrests. Faye was arrested last year on charges of defamation and contempt of court, which he denied. He was released from prison 10 days before the vote. He has attracted many young voters who are frustrated with the ruling class.

Fatou Kine Fall is a 32-year-old opposition youth campaigner.

FALL: [Speaking French]

She says here that she showed up to vote for all those who died in the protests.

More than seven million voters registered to vote in the election largely praised as peaceful.

Nigeria kidnappings— In Nigeria, local officials in central Kaduna state on Monday welcomed more than 130 school children who were kidnapped two weeks ago.

Authorities said the children were picked up in Zamfara state, more than 120 miles away from their school.

Kaduna state Gov. Uba Sani said the children are receiving medical and psychological care.

School authorities initially reported the kidnappers took 287 students. But Gov. Sani disputed that count. He says here that the children said 138 were abducted.

SANI: And they also admitted to me that 137 are here, back. Only one person was lost.

Nigeria has seen a wave of abductions in recent weeks. No group claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, but locals have blamed bandits known for mass abductions for ransom.

Earlier on Friday, Nigerian authorities reported the return of 17 students also taken from their school in northwest Sokoto state two weeks earlier.

Ecuador death — Over in Ecuador, authorities are investigating after the country’s youngest mayor was found murdered.

Police found 27-year-old Brigitte Garcia and her communications officer inside her car.

Both of them were shot dead, says Emerson Ubidia. He’s the Manabi provincial police commander.

UBIDIA: [Speaking Spanish]

He says here that the police received an alert from their relatives that they were missing.

Several other political officials have been killed or threatened since last year. Ecuador has been under a state of emergency since January.

AUDIO: [Applause]

Venezuela opposition — We end today in Venezuela, where an 80-year-old college professor is expected to step in as the opposition’s presidential candidate.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado chose Corina Yoris as her stand-in after Venezuela’s top court barred her from holding public office. That’s after Machado scored a landslide victory in the opposition’s primary vote.

But Yoris said the website of the National Electoral Council has blocked her attempts to register as a candidate.

YORIS: [Speaking Spanish]

She says here that the opposition has exhausted all attempts to resolve the problem as she called for an extension.

Yoris has never held public office. If she is allowed to run in the July vote, Yoris will face incumbent President Nicolas Maduro.

That’s it for today’s WORLD Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

YOUTUBE: Hi, buddy. I’m your friendly neighborhood police officer.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, it’s not quite like the police in The Lego Movie. It’s more the other way around.

A real California police department was attempting a friendly tweak of a new state law about mugshots.

Don’t you know it’s illegal now in California to put suspects up on social media.

So the Murrieta PD photoshopped Lego blocks in the place of the mugshot face and posted those pics online.

The images, of course, went viral. But Lego was not amused, and they sicced bad cop on Murrieta’s finest.

Quoting the department now, “Lego respectfully asked us to refrain from using their intellectual property in our social media content, which, of course, we understand and will comply with.”

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Everything is awesome.

EICHER: It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, March 27th. 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: the second part of an adoption story.

Yesterday we brought you Part One on the Chinery family. Back in 2020, they were just four days from leaving for China to adopt a daughter when COVID shut down their travel.

EICHER: Late last year, they were given approval to go get her, but had just weeks to get things in order. WORLD’s Lindsay Mast has the story.

AUDIO: Welcome home, Chinerys… welcome home!

LINDSAY MAST: It was a scene that had played out more than once for Jeff and Dianne Chinery—welcoming home an adopted child from China. But on January 26th, 2024, sitting in the Atlanta airport, Dianne wasn’t sure it would happen again. She was just a couple of hours away from leaving for China, to finalize a fourth adoption–this one of a little girl named Mei. Dianne’s family had been waiting for this day for more than four years. Her luggage and two of her seven children sat nearby. But Jeff was still 25 miles away, waiting at a UPS store for a package they needed to get on that plane.

DIANNE CHINERY: This packet held not only our Visas to go to China, it held all of our passports and original adoption work from the two children, our previously adopted children who were going with us. And they said, “We have no clue where it is.”

It was one more setback in trying to bring Mei home.

Over the last three decades, tens of thousands of Chinese children like Mei gained families and became American citizens through adoption. But that trend screeched to a halt with the pandemic. The U.S. State Department says those adoptions have yet to officially resume. And there’s no word on when they might. For years now, families like the Chinerys just had to wait.

Debbie Price is Executive Director with Children’s House International:

PRICE: They have the picture. They have the information. They were just waiting for the process to take its course. And so they can't give up on what they consider their child.

But in 2023, some families who had been close to completing their adoptions pre-pandemic were given a chance to go get their children. It’s not clear how many families fit that criteria–the State Department has not yet released those numbers. Last December, the Chinerys found out they could get Mei –but had just a few weeks to get things in order.

They put in for an updated home study. Fingerprints for their son who had turned 18. Visas, passports–everything they needed took time–and there was a lot of bureaucracy to work through. Weekends–when offices closed–were brutal. Then that package went missing.

CHINERY: I think that's when you know, I'm trusting the Lord. I was at peace. I don't trust my instincts. And I don't think I'm super intuitive, necessarily. But I thought the Lord is gonna get us on this plane. Somehow.

The visas showed up.

The Chinerys made the plane. And then…

SOUND: [Guangzhou streets, speaking in Chinese]

… they were in Guangzhou.

And there was Mei.

CHINERY: To see her in person, and to see her animated and real, was really wonderful. And by that I mean that we were in wonder, it was wonderful. It was amazing.

CHINERY AT ZOO: Oh she’s good with animals.

Mei is mostly nonverbal, and has cerebral palsy, but she also has a sparkle in her eyes, and a sense of humor. On their second morning, she pranked Jeff –sprinkling pepper in his breakfast coffee when he wasn’t looking, then giggling.

The family spent two days together before appearing at the U.S. Consulate.

When Mei agreed to go to the U.S. with them, she became their child. And when the family touched down back in Atlanta on February 9th, she also became an American citizen.

AUDIO: Welcome hooome!!!

Finally together in the family home, Dianne dusted off the books her other kids loved when they were little: Dr. Seuss—Bible stories.

CHINERY READING: He heard lots of people walking, walk walk walk [Mei makes sounds] He heard lots of people talking, talk talk talk…

Within weeks, Mei started picking up sign language and initiating conversation. She’s friendly. And she loves walks outside in the Georgia sun, especially if she can hitch a ride on her brother’s back.

But she’s spent a lot of time at appointments, too. The family will never know how four more years of therapies and treatments might have helped. But Dianne says they are only looking forward.

CHINERY: We can't deal with the what ifs because oftentimes our what ifs, we think we know what the what ifs would have been. God knows, he knows.

The harder “what if” is imagining what will happen to children in China’s orphanages should China not resume intercountry adoptions with the U.S.

Dianne says, in a spiritual sense, we are all like Mei—needing adoption, the hope of salvation from a condition we can’t get ourselves out of.

CHINERY: To be honest with each of our adopted children, as time goes on, I don't get used to the fact that that was their condition at one time. Thinking about that becomes harder, it becomes harder. We have got to pray. Knowing that we don't care more than God does. We don't love more than God does. We are not wiser than God is.

Years ago, she started a private Facebook page for friends to follow their adoption journey. She marked the good and the hard with a hashtag: “we could have missed this.” After missing a full four years of having Mei in their home, she says the sentiment means more than ever.

CHINERY: We cannot imagine life without her. And every single one of our kids have said it too.

CHINERY READING: But best of all, Bartimaeus saw Jesus. That’s a good story. You want more?

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday March 27th. 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. Up next: The Anxious Generation. Book reviewer Chelsea Boes says a new book with that title is challenging Americans to think more carefully about the influence of technology on children.

CHELSEA BOES: “Daddy, can you take the iPad away from me? I’m trying to take my eyes off it but I can’t.”

Author Jonathan Haidt recalls these words of his 6-year-old daughter in his new book, The Anxious Generation. Haidt’s book is a hefty, 370-page treatise on the effects of the new “phone-based childhood.”

In it, Haidt argues, “Gen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets…” It “called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, and unsuitable for children and adolescents.” Haidt compares our gamble on the untested, phone-based childhood to sending our offspring off to grow up on Mars.

Kids like Haidt’s daughter inhabit a dis­embodied, virtual world where users broadcast to a crowd instead of developing relationships one-to-one. “People can block others or just quit when they are not pleased,” Haidt notes. “Communities are short-lived.” Haidt claims children often end up trading a sense of discovery for defensiveness and they feel less confident and more anxious. Teens report increasing loneliness and isolation—and those addicted to digital activities say, “nothing feels good anymore.”

Haidt doesn’t lay the blame for teen anxiety and depression solely on smartphones. True, phones are “experience blockers,” using up precious childhood time. But he says overprotective parents are experience blockers too. Why did the number of girls visiting emergency rooms skyrocket after 2010, including many cases of self-harm? Because they were staring into TikTok and Instagram feeds which made them feel inadequate by comparison. Why did far fewer boys go to the hospital for unintentional injuries (such as broken bones) after 2010? Because they didn’t play enough. They were overprotected outdoors or they were engrossed by video games and online porn.

Not that we want more children breaking bones, of course. But Haidt rightly assumes that we do want them to live a life of discovery. That means avoiding “four foundational harms” of phone-based childhood: social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention deprivation, and addiction.

Haidt writes about several ways to “bring childhood back to Earth,” but, most of all, he asks everyone to act together. Peer pressure will lose its hold only if the majority of parents begin setting boundaries around screen use.

His most startling suggestion is that people defy phone-based loneliness by going to church and observing a traditional church calendar. “I am an atheist,” Haidt notes, “but I find that I sometimes need words and concepts from religion to understand the experience of life as a human being. This is one of those times.”

Haidt’s solution is “shared sacredness.” He criticizes our own era, saying, “There is no Sabbath and there are no holy days. Everything is profane.” He does mention evolution in this section, but his line of argument isn’t very convincing.

What best explains the child mental health crisis? Not war, climate change, or even trauma. “People don’t get depressed when they face threats collectively;” Haidt insists, “they get depressed when they feel isolated, cut off, lonely, or useless.” Much of kids’ seclusion today arises from the deceptive portal in their pockets.

I’m Chelsea Boes.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: The state of chemical abortion in America while the Supreme Court considers a case that could put it in check. We’ll tell you about the scale of its use. And, a beloved hymn turns 75. 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 Peter telling the people: “But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses….And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out…” —Acts 3:14,15, 17-19

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.