The World and Everything in It: May 1, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. I'm Jean Oram, and I live in Toledo, Ohio. I've listened to your program from its earliest days. I know you'll enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Congress renews a program that lets the government spy on the communications of foreign nationals. But what does it mean for American citizens?

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: We’ll talk about it with an expert on Washington Wednesday. Also, World Tour. Plus, bringing flowers to lonely people.

BLACKWELDER: I think my favorite part is what we're going to do right now, because these people out here at this nursing home they go nuts.

And winning a war. What’s it mean? WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney reflects on that question.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, May 1st. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

MAST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Good morning!

REICHARD: It’s time for news with Kent Covington.

SOUND: [Street protesters]

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Columbia University » On the streets of Manhattan last night, onlookers taunted NYPD officers as they marched onto the campus of Columbia University to remove protesters who illegally barricaded themselves inside a building.

AUDIO: Quit your jobs! Quit your jobs! 

Police breached the Hamilton Hall building equipped with helmets and zip ties. Officers cleared 30 to 40 people from inside the building some 12 hours after they locked themselves inside as protests continued around the campus. 

AUDIO: Students, students hold your ground. NYPD back down. NYPD back down. 

The demonstrators inside the building could face charges of burglary in the third degree, criminal mischief, and trespassing.

GOP leaders condemn Columbia protest/anti-Semitism investigation » Hours earlier on Capitol Hill House Speaker Mike Johnson and other GOP leaders condemned the anti-Israeli demonstrations at the school.

JOHNSON:  And what we're seeing right now is people wave Hezbollah flags and Hamas flags, their homemade signs supporting what happened on October 7th. It's outrageous. Hamas endorsed the protest at Columbia University.

The leaders called on university president Minouche Shafik to resign saying she and other administrators allowed it to get this far and failed to protect Jewish students.

GOP leaders announce House anti-Semitism probe » They also announced a House-wide effort to crack down on anti-Semitism on college campuses.

JOHNSON: Nearly every committee here has a role to play in these efforts to stop the madness that has ensued.

House GOP Whip Tom Emmer said many campuses have become breeding grounds for anti-Semitism.

EMMER: Why? Because of university administrators who have refused to protect their Jewish students. Because of faculty members who have enabled the wave of anti Semitic violence.

And Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefani said campus anti-Semitism is a widespread problem.

STEFANIK: At Yale University, a Jewish student was stabbed in the eye with a Palestinian flag. At the University of Southern California, graduation was canceled due to the university being unable to guarantee the safety of students.

GOP leaders vowed to haul officials from numerous schools in front of House committees to answer for their handling of the problem. That also said federal funds that some of the schools receive could be at risk.

Israel-Gaza/cease-fire latest » Meantime, Secretary of State Tony Blinken has arrived in Israel after meetings with Saudi Arabia. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel says the U.S. that Hamas will agree to the terms of a new cease-fire arrangement.

PATEL: One that releases the hostages — one that allows a surge of humanitarian aid in the region as well.

The Biden administration’s hope that a temporary cease-fire could lead to a more permanent end to the war averting an Israeli ground operation in the city of Rafah. Blinken told reporters …

BLINKEN: Our views on Rafah, I think, are very well known. The President's been very clear about it. I've been clear about it.

The administration opposes it on humanitarian grounds.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear once more that the 40-day cease-fire would only delay the demise of the terror group. He says the war will not end without the destruction of Hamas. And he says that will require a ground operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which he calls the last remaining Hamas stronghold.

Trump contempt of court » The judge in New York’s criminal business fraud case against Donald Trump just fined the former president $9,000. He said that’s a thousand bucks for each of nine different violations of a gag order in the case.

Trump attorney Alina Habba:

HABBA:  I think it's completely unconstitutional. I think when you're a defendant, truthfully, these statements are the statements that you're allowed to hear from the defense, innocent until proven guilty, especially when you've done nothing wrong.

Judge Juan Merchan held Trump in contempt of court. He stopped short of imposing jail time but warned that that’s not off the table if Trump does not abide by the order.

The ruling came at the start of the second week of testimony in the trial.

Florida lawsuit over Title IX changes » Several more Republican-led states are pushing back against the Biden Administration’s removal of protections for girls’ and women’s sports and privacy.

Title IX is a federal law aimed at preventing sex-based discrimination in schools, but the administration is expanding the definition of ‘sex’ to include ‘gender identity’ and ‘sexual orientation.’

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis:

DESANTIS: We are not going to let Joe Biden try to inject men into women’s activities. We are not going to let Joe Biden undermine the rights of parents.

Six states filed a lawsuit together in Kentucky Tuesday, bringing the total number of states taking legal action to at least 15.

They say allowing men in women’s sports and inside of girls’ locker rooms is the opposite of the protections Title IX is meant to provide to girls and women.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Updates to a controversial surveillance law on Washington Wednesday. Plus, World Tour.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 1st of May, 2024. This is WORLD Radio and we thank you for listening. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Time now for Washington Wednesday.

Before Congress passed foreign aid last month, it renewed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. Among other things, Section 702 of that law allows U.S. intelligence agencies like the FBI to view a database of private communications of non-American targets without getting a warrant.

MAST: Congress renewed the law until 2026 and made a few changes. Those include greater restrictions on who can use the tool and stronger penalties for misusing it. But Congress included some concerning expansions of surveillance power.

REICHARD: Here now to talk about these changes is Steve Bradbury. He’s a distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a former official in the Trump and Bush administrations. Steve, welcome!

STEVE BRADBURY: Thank you. Good to be here.

REICHARD: Well, let's start with this. Can we agree that these changes include good reforms and also some bad reforms? And if so, broadly speaking, what are those good and bad aspects?

BRADBURY: Yes, I definitely agree with that, Mary. It definitely toughens up the oversight, the penalties for misuse of these powerful tools, and put some good restrictions, particularly on the FBI's use of the program. The bad things, though, include some doozies. For one thing, they've expanded the definition of what kinds of service providers might receive court orders to cooperate with this program. And now under a provision that was added to this bill, the definition includes any service provider that has access to equipment on which the communications may be stored or carried. And it's really hard to tell how far that could sweep. It's a little ironic that in all of this debate with all of the abuses of the FBI and with the intelligence community, and all this discussion about narrowing and restricting the program, here we have a provision that was added that greatly expands it potentially. But we'll have to see how it goes.

REICHARD: What is something that the U.S. government cannot do now that it could do before?

BRADBURY: Well, there are restrictions on how the FBI can access this data. And previously, there have been widespread abuses. The FBI on 278,000 occasions, according to the FISA court, improperly dipped into this database for purposes having nothing to do with national security. And the FBI made arguments that this was okay under pre-existing law. There's a debate about that. It's now much clearer that they cannot do that, under this new statute, as amended, they can only use this database for authorized national security investigations. So that's a positive step. It's a narrowing. I think some of us would like to have seen the FBI completely removed from the program altogether, and put back in the box of traditional law enforcement, rather than national security. Congress didn't go in that direction. But they did put additional handcuffs on the FBI's ability to get access to this data and make use of it.

REICHARD: Well, let's bring this down to the real concrete specific, what is a concrete example that an average American might experience as a violation of his or her rights under the way the reforms are now written?

BRADBURY: Well, this program is targeted, as you mentioned, at foreigners outside the United States, not at U.S. citizens. However, whenever one of those foreigners-and there are a lot of them under surveillance, and this program-communicates with anybody inside the U.S., that communication gets swept up into this program as well. So there will be communications of Americans, to the extent they are communicating with any of these foreign nationals outside the U.S., and the question then is, how will that data be used? Who could have access to it? And it may be communications of ordinary Americans that are swept up in this, and so that's the concern. And the question, then is, how easy is it to get access to that, those communications and what can they be used for?

REICHARD: There were previously two versions of this bill, one from the House Judiciary Committee and another from the House Intelligence Committee. Back in February, you said the Judiciary version went too far to protect foreign nationals who are living here illegally, while the Intelligence version didn’t do enough to constrain the FBI from abusing FISA. Where did the final version of the bill land, compared to earlier versions?

BRADBURY: Yeah, it does land somewhere in the middle. The previous version from the House Judiciary would have required a warrant in order to dip into that database and make use of it. But the warrant requirement wasn't limited to information about American citizens and lawful permanent residents of the U.S., but included any information about a foreign national who might have been inside the U.S. And unfortunately, right now we have a terrible situation with an open border on the South because of the current administration. We really have no idea how many foreign nationals are in the U.S. who may pose a danger to the United States. And so we didn't think that right now was the time to create extra protections for foreign nationals in the U.S. So that's how we thought the Judiciary bill had gone too far. 

The House Intel bill hadn't gone far enough at all, because it still allowed the FBI pretty much unlimited discretion to do national security. What Congress ended up with was additional restrictions and squeezing down of the FBI's role. They ended up not adopting any warrant requirement at all. You may have heard there was an amendment at the end of the process in the House to include a warrant requirement for collecting information out of this data that relates to American citizens or lawful permanent residents of the U.S. We thought that was a sensible compromise proposal for a warrant requirement. Unfortunately, that failed in the House on a vote of 212 to 212. And, unfortunately, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, cast the deciding vote to make it a against the proposal and so it failed in the House. And so that's not in the final bill.

REICHARD: Well, this is all very alarming. I'm wondering, could you reassure us with what checks are in place to make sure the government doesn't infringe on our rights with all this expanded surveillance?

BRADBURY: What happens is the check is usually after the fact. So there will be oversight, there will be audits of how the program is used. It's also possible that a contractor service provider that receives an order like this could challenge it before the FISA court and I imagine if they try to expand the universe of entities that may receive these orders significantly, you'll see a lot of legal challenges to that before the FISA court, and that could be another process. So there's the FISA court is a check, Congress through its oversight mechanism is a check, but really, at the end of the day, there's no substitute for a strong president, attorney general, FBI director who are correctly focused on ensuring the protection of Americans’ constitutional rights and civil liberties in the way these powerful tools are used. And if we lose that check on the front end, in terms of the exercise of discretion, any check on the back end is a distant second, in terms of its, you know, effectiveness and importance.

REICHARD: Any other aspect of the story that you think warrants more attention?

BRADBURY: Well, I'm grateful that in the final process of approval or reauthorization of this powerful tool, Congress reduced the period of time for which they're reauthorizing the program from five years down to two. As you mentioned, it will be up for reauthorization again in 2026. So that means right in the middle of the next president's term, we'll go through this debate again. And if we have a new president at that time, then I think we can take a fresh look at this and reassess how much this tool is needed and whether further reforms are appropriate.

REICHARD: Steve Bradbury is a distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a former official in the Trump and Bush administrations. Steven, thank you for your time!

BRADBURY: Mary, thank you. Appreciate it.

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

AUDIO: [Sound of rescuers]

Kenya flooding — We start today’s roundup in Kenya where authorities have delayed school reopenings by a week as they respond to deadly flooding.

Heavy rainfall that began in mid-March has killed more than 160 people. On Monday, authorities said at least 45 people died in one town in western Kenya after a clogged runway tunnel caused flash floods and a landslide.

Authorities said the storm flooded scores of schools in the capital Nairobi and destroyed roads and bridges.

Dickson Makasi, one of the residents of the Mathare slum in Nairobi, said he watched part of his home get washed away as his family tried to avoid drowning.

MAKASI: My two rooms here were washed away by flood and right now we don't have anything. I have my children. By good luck, my children were not around.

The heavy storms have also hit other East African countries. More than 150 people have died in Tanzania while flooding has affected 200,000 people in Burundi.

AUDIO: [Protesters cheering]

Georgia protests — Over in the country of Georgia, sandwiched between Russia and Turkey, tens of thousands of protesters are still opposing a controversial proposal called the “foreign agent bill.”

The protests began about two weeks ago when Georgian lawmakers reintroduced plans for the bill. It will require non-government organizations and independent media organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from foreign donors to register as “bearing the interests of a foreign power.”

The Justice Ministry will also monitor them and could mandate them to share sensitive information.

Opponents have said it is similar to a Russian law that authorities have used to target independent media and groups.

Nika Melia is the co-founder of the Georgian opposition Ahali party.

MELIA: [Speaking Georgian]

He says here that the protest is a popular movement that won’t stop.

Thousands of pro-government supporters turned out in Tbilisi on Monday to back the bill.

The bill has passed its first reading in parliament. It still has to pass two more stages before becoming law.

AUDIO: [Protesters chanting]

Australia protests — Over in Australia, tens of thousands of people joined nationwide demonstrations to decry violence against women.

Some 27 women have died this year alone from gender-based violence. That’s an average of one woman killed every four days.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joined the protesters in Canberra. He called the issue a national crisis.

ALBANESE: We need to change the culture, we need to change attitudes, we need to change the legal system, we need to change the approach by all governments because it's not enough to support victims. We need to focus on the perpetrators and focus on prevention.

In April, authorities said a suspect who stabbed six people to death at a Sydney shopping center targeted women.

Bangladesh heatwave — We wrap up today in Bangladesh where millions of children returned to school this week.

AUDIO: [Classroom]

An ongoing heatwave forced authorities to close schools for a week. Meteorologists said nearly 75 percent of the country has experienced continuous heat waves that have lasted nearly a month.

Temperatures rose as high as 108 degrees Fahrenheit in parts of the country last week.

Soumitra Ghosh was among the parents who dropped off their children at school on Sunday.

GHOSH: [Speaking Bengali]

He says here that the high temperatures affect the students’ productivity and concentration.

Unusually hot weather is also affecting other Asian countries. In April, some 47,000 schools suspended classes in the Philippines.

And in Thailand, heatstroke has killed at least 30 people this year—seven short of the country’s total heatstroke deaths last year.

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

MARY REICHARD, HOST: You know how kids can make noises that you’d rather not hear? England’s Lauren Wallace knows all about it. Her nine year old son Cooper kept mimicking seagulls.

LAUREN WALLACE: And we kept encouraging him to stop. And then we heard about the competition, and it was encouraging him to practice. Much to the annoyance of the neighbors. Sorry, neighbors. (laughs)

But that led to Cooper’s championship call in Belgium last week for the EC Gull Screeching Competition:

JUDGE: A seagull that is hungry? 

SOUND: [Screeches and cheers]

Contestants are judged on dress, behavior, and sound. Marine biologist Jan Seys was one of the judges:

JAN SEYS: Actually it’s real science. Before you can really imitate a gull, you have to make nice observations. Otherwise you will never make it.

The aim of the competition is to raise appreciation for the sea birds, often disparaged as “rats of the sea.”

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good luck getting him to stop now, mom!

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

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, May 1st. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: providing joy and comfort with flowers.

Some enterprising women use leftover flowers to create beautiful arrangements for the elderly.

MAST: WJI mid-career graduate Jen Curtis visited with these women and brings us this story.

AUDIO: Here are the clippers, whoever needs them…

JEN CURTIS: Jeannie Blackwelder gathers with some of her lifelong friends at a park to make flower arrangements. A local florist just dropped off large black buckets of daisies, carnations and roses that would have otherwise been discarded. The group is ready to put them to good use.

Through an organization called Random Acts of Flowers, they collect leftover flowers from weddings and funerals. Then they create new designs in smaller vases to give to elderly patients in the area.

A year ago, some friends had seen the organization at work in another town. They couldn’t wait to tell Blackwelder how encouraging it was to see recycled flowers improve the outlook of people in care facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes.

BLACKWELDER: They took me out to lunch and I’m like sign me up. It’s a great idea. And I’ve been with them ever since.

Blackwelder is not wasting her retirement years. She uses her gift of bringing people together to do something good for her beloved town. Residents are involved in many different ways, from the elementary school collecting vases and a gas station on Main Street sponsoring fundraisers.

BLACKWELDER: Everybody loves to do the flower thing. It’s just joyful.

SOUND: [Arranging]

Six years ago, Blackwelder started a book club for her friend group. But it didn’t take long to realize they disagreed about book selections and used their meeting time discussing everything except books. Instead, they decided to meet together and do service projects. They started an Asheville chapter of Random Acts of Flowers a year ago. They had little more than enthusiasm and a good network of people willing to help.

BLACKWELDER: But we cut them, make vases, put water in them and we'll pack them in boxes to take to the nursing home.

SOUND: [Laughing and loading]

The group hosts workshops after big holidays like Valentine’s Day and Christmas when lots of floral “leftovers” are donated. But other times of the year they put together spur of the moment mini-workshops when donations come in, since flowers have a limited shelf life. Their retirement schedule makes flexibility possible.

Barbara Butcher and Belinda Gregory are two more of the women that add water to the vases and pack them in boxes. The flowers get loaded in Blackwelder’s van and it’s time for deliveries.

BUTCHER/GREGORY: I just can’t wait to see you get the water in there (laughter). I thought I’d let you do that (laughter).

A dedicated space would allow them to do more. They collect vases and clippers, but need somewhere to store these items. They meet at the park as they wait for a building to make the arrangements.

BUTCHER: So we've taken a lot of plants to a lot of different health places and distributed them. Now we're at the point now we're looking for a permanent place.

For now they transport in personal vehicles, but need a van to make deliveries simpler.

BLACKWELDER: We have vases scattered everywhere, and then, when we have workshops, where are the vases? We’ve gotta haul them, so when we get that spot, we’ll all be in one specific location.

Blackwelder and Butcher drop off today’s arrangements at an assisted care home. They’re for the residents who need the most encouragement.

BLACKWELDER: I think my favorite part is what we're going to do right now because, I mean I know the big hospitals need them but these people out here at this nursing home they go nuts.

AUDIO: [Chatter and unloading]

The beige halls are filled with medical equipment and the smell of sickness. The flowers stand out in such a drab space. The pleasant aroma of botanicals mingle with the smells of disinfectant and ailments.

One woman sits in a chair. Her wrinkled head wrapped in a large surgical bandage. Butcher carries flowers to her, and she tries to hold them, but she is so weak it takes too much effort. Her countenance changes as she realizes the flowers are for her. A smile slowly blooms.

BUTCHER: It’s unbelievable joy that you get from giving flowers to someone who doesn't even know who you are.

After all the deliveries are finished, Blackwelder takes the extra vases to a temporary storage area. They have big plans coming up for Mother’s Day. Although any day is a good day to give flowers, they prioritize making people feel less alone on holidays.

BUTCHER: When see the colors, I think He uses it to give us peace and to give us our hope and comfort.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jen Curtis.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday May 1st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Up next: WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney says when it comes to foreign wars, “V” should stand for “victory” not “vacillate.”

JANIE B. CHEANEY: The year after I dropped out of college to get married, radio personality Paul Harvey came to speak at my old campus. Though best known for The Rest of the Story, Harvey was originally a news and opinion journalist. The Vietnam conflict had just come to a messy and inconclusive end, but he told us that night that its very messiness proved, “War has gone out of style.” The audience responded enthusiastically. Some had come home traumatized from Vietnam. Others had lost friends or relatives there. Was Harvey right?

In a way, yes. War has gone out of style in the sense that we have very little stomach for it. But armed conflict—hostile invasions and atrocities and destruction raining from the sky—is still very much in vogue. What’s no longer stylish is victory.

World War II ended in 1945 with two milestone days: victory in Europe on May 8, and victory over Japan on August 15. Both were unconditional surrenders—no cease-fires or negotiations. Germany and Japan gave up and lay down their arms; after six devastating years, the War was over and the good guys won. It took great determination and immense human sacrifice to lean in until the enemy unconditionally surrendered, but that was the cost of victory. Since then, victory doesn’t seem worth the cost.

Korea ended in a stalemate. Vietnam was a defeat. Iraq followed lightening success with lingering setbacks, and Afghanistan fell in disaster. Since 1950, America’s only clear military successes have been military actions: get in, achieve the objective, get out. Grenada, Panama, and Desert Storm were so quick they’re barely remembered, but they were popular at the time and “successful” in removing the dictator or protecting the oil.

But when a war lasts more than a few months, Americans lose confidence—or worse, we lose interest. When a few flag-draped coffins give way to multiple body bags, a messy end is probably not far off.

If the conflict isn’t clear, neither is the objective. A direct attack on the U.S. Pacific fleet was clear: Japan hit us at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines, so we hit them back and didn’t stop until the enemy was completely broken. The next big test of our will came not from a nation but from Osama Bin Laden, a fanatic sheltered in Afghanistan with a loosely-affiliated terror network. Stamping out one fire ignited others, the first objective shifted to the next, and at the end of twenty long years, some felt we accomplished nothing. Perhaps because no one could explain what victory would look like.

Israel knows what victory looks like: the destruction of Hamas. Likewise Ukraine: the expulsion of Russian troops. Both are responding to direct attacks by identifiable enemies, a form of war that hasn’t gone out of style and never will. It’s not for the U.S. to define victory for other countries, but to determine whose side we’re on and what we are willing to do. Vacillation wins neither war nor peace.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Tomorrow: A settlement between the FBI and athletes who were abused. We’ll tell you about it. And, a new report about the state of religious freedom around the world. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Lindsay Mast.

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 says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!” —Psalm 111:10

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.