The World and Everything in It: May 21, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. Hi, my name is Tiffany, and I am a paralegal at a traffic defense law firm here in the beautiful city of Virginia Beach, Virginia. Every day, I help clients who “drove it like they stole it.” So if you're driving and listening to the program today, please slow down and stay safe. I hope you enjoy today’s program!

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Iran’s president dies in a helicopter crash, what’s at stake?

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: We’ll talk about it with a foreign policy expert. Also five Supreme Court decisions. We’ll have a rundown of those. And the struggle to restore the scorched land and lost livelihoods in the Texas Panhandle.

FERGUSON: A lot of these ranchers make up to 20% of their income off of the wildlife.

And the gift of work, and why we need a resurgence of the work ethic.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, May 21st. 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: Time for news. Here’s Kent Covington

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: ICC Israel/Hamas » President Biden is condemning a decision by the top prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, or ICC to seek war crimes arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.

BIDEN: There is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas. (applause)

The president, speaking at a White House celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month.

BIDEN: Contrary to allegations against Israel made by the International Court of Justice, what’s happening is not genocide. We reject that.

Hours earlier, ICC prosecutor Karim Kahn said he’s seeking arrest warrants for top leaders of Hamas and Israel, accusing both of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza war.

KHAN:  Nothing on earth can justify willfully depriving human beings, including women, women and children, babies, the old and the young, of the basic necessities required for life.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to Kahn’s announcement. He called the decision “a moral outrage of historic proportions.”

NETANYAHU: He is callously pouring gasoline on the fires of antisemitism that are raging across the world. Through this incendiary decision, Mr. Khan takes his place among the great antisemites in modern times.

Neither the United States nor Israel recognize the authority of the ICC in this matter.

And Republican lawmakers in the House are now considering new sanctions against the international court.

Jake Sullivan in Israel » Meantime, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel on Monday. WORLD’s Mark Mellinger has more.

SOUND: [Cameras snapping]

MARK MELLINGER: Cameras flashed as the two leaders shook hands in Tel Aviv.

They discussed an arrangement under which Saudi Arabia would, for the first time, grant Israel diplomatic recognition in exchange for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Sullivan urged Netanyahu to connect the war in Gaza to a political strategy for the territory’s future.

The White House called the talks ‘constructive.’

So far, Netanyahu has rejected all calls for a two-state solution.

For WORLD, I’m Mark Mellinger.

SOUND: [Mourners in Tehran]

U.S. responds to death of Iranian president » Hundreds of people gathered in Tehran yesterday to mourn the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

Raisi was among eight people who died in a helicopter crash in a mountainous region of northern Iran over the weekend.

The leaders of several countries offered their condolences, including China’s Xi Jinping, who called his death a great loss for Iran. And Russian President Vladimir Putin called Raisi a true friend.

U.S. officials were far less sentimental. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller:

MILLER: We regret any loss of life. We don’t want to see anyone die in a helicopter crash. But that doesn’t change the reality of his record, both as a judge and as a president of Iran – the fact that he has blood on his hands.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed a vice president to serve in Raisi’s stead and ordered that elections be held within 50 days.

Austin on Ukraine defense » Top Pentagon officials met Monday with leaders from dozens of other nations backing Ukraine against Russia’s onslaught. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. CQ Brown …

BROWN:  Ukraine defense contact group has stood together in the face of this Russian aggression, and we will continue to stand together to support Ukraine and defend the international order.

And Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin vowed to keep weapons flowing to Ukraine amid a new Russian offensive.

AUSTIN:  Putin's forces have opened another front to seize sovereign Ukrainian territory and the Kremlin's invaders are obliterating Ukrainian villages, killing innocent civilians and bombarding civilian infrastructure, including dams and power plants.

Russia is ramping up attacks in Ukraine’s northern Kharkiv region.

Austin is asking allies to chip in more to Ukraine's air defense systems.

Trump trial » Donald Trump was back in a Manhattan courtroom again Monday after campaigning over the weekend for week-6 of his so-called hush money case. The former president told reporters:

TRUMP:  New York State can't let this happen. There were no crimes. We did nothing wrong. And I want to get back to campaigning. I'm representing millions and millions, hundreds of millions of people.

The jury heard from defense witnesses on Monday, including one who directly refuted a key claim made by the prosecution’s star witness, former Trump lawyer Michale Cohen.

Former federal prosecutor Robert Costello said Cohen had told him that Trump knew nothing about a payment Cohen made to a woman to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Trump.

Defense attorneys also further called Cohen’s credibility into question … when he also admitted to jurors that he stole tens of thousands of dollars from Trump’s company.

Julian Assange » A court in London has ruled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal his extradition to the United States further dragging out a yearslong legal fight.

His wife Stella Assange told reporters …

STELLA ASSANGE: The judges reached the right decision. We spent a long time hearing the United States putting lipstick on a pig, but the judges did not buy it.

Assange has spent the past several years in a British high security prison. His lawyers argued that if extradited, he wouldn’t have the same free speech protections as an American.

Assange is charged with espionage for publishing classified U.S. documents from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He claims he’s guilty only of practicing journalism.

But the U.S. government says he did not merely receive and publish the documents, but also played an active role in stealing them.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: The political fallout from a helicopter crash in Iran. Plus, wildfire recovery in Texas. 

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 21st of May, 2024.

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

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. First up: a leadership shakeup in Iran.

SOUND: [Turkish CNN reporter on site as Red Crescent workers load remains into a convoy of vehicles in Varzaqan, Iran.]

A Turkish CNN reporter heard there as medical workers from the Red Crescent load the remains of eight people into response vehicles on Monday.

Iran’s president and foreign minister died in a helicopter crash over the weekend, on their return from a state visit to Azerbaijan.

REICHARD: Joining us now to talk about what this means is Will Inboden. He served as a member of the National Security Council staff under President George W. Bush. He now teaches at the University of Florida and writes for World Opinions.

Will, good morning!

WILL INBODEN: Great to be with you, Mary.

REICHARD: Will, it’s a big story whenever the president of a country dies, but considering that we’re talking about Iran and an accident, there seems to be a lot more going on here.

Let’s start with who these men are. Can you give us some background on President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Abdollahian?

INBODEN: Sure! Yeah, the two very, this is a very significant development as you as you noted, and both of them were known very much as hardliners. I would say in moral terms, they're both very wicked men. Raisi, in particular, had presided over the last few decades in his different roles in Iran over the killing and executions of thousands of peaceful dissidents in Iran and critics of the regime. He had played a major hand in a number of Iran terrorist attacks over the last few decades, including attacks that killed hundreds of American troops. He certainly has played a significant role in Iran, ongoing support for Hezbollah, and Hamas, and Hamas's horrible attacks on Israel. 

And then the foreign minister, Abdollahian, likewise, is a real hardliner, you know, support of Iran's nuclear program was only in the position because of his broader support for the overall regime. And so it is very significant that they're dead. But, you know, they're they're not to be missed.

REICHARD: Will, all the facts aren’t in yet but do you see any evidence of foul play here, or do you think fog really is to blame?

INBODEN: That's the big question, Mary, and I really don't know, I don't have any inside information. I think very few people know. It will be interesting to see what if anything comes out on on that question over the next few weeks. I think it's one of three possibilities. The first one, which has to be foremost, is it was a genuine accident. You know, flying helicopters through fog in mountains is a very dangerous, perilous enterprise, and so very well could have been a genuine accident. 

If there was other endeavors involved, I think it's one of two things. It was either perhaps Israeli sabotage---again, you know, Israel, of course, has any number of incentives to do more harm to Iran, because Iran has sworn Israel's destruction. That, you know, our listeners will recall a few weeks ago, Iran launched that horrible and unprecedented missile attack on Israel, and Israel then did a smaller targeted retaliation against one site known for Iran's nuclear program. But Israel would potentially have incentive to do a stronger action here. I have no evidence that Israel actually did, so I want to be very clear to our listeners, but it can't be ruled out, especially because Israel has very close ties to Azerbaijan, and that's where the helicopter had taken off from and so they really intelligent certainly would have had potential access there. 

And the third possibility is that it might have been sabotaged by other elements within Iran. And this is where the story is very interesting. Ayatollah Khamenei, who is the supreme leader of Iran is 85 years old and in poor health, and there's a lot of maneuvering and jockeying to succeed him. And the two main candidates to succeed the Ayatollah were President Raisi, and then the Ayatollah's son, Mojtaba, and that even though the Iranian regime is very wicked and malevolent, it's also riven with feuds and factions, and it's certainly possible that a faction supporting Mojtaba Khamenei saw this as an opportunity to eliminate his main rival to ascend to the supreme leader position. So that's a possibility as well. We just don't know.

REICHARD: What do you make of Iran’s response to this situation?

INBODEN: Again, it's really hard to discern much. You know, the regime tightly controls all information. And, you know, there's no independent media, there's no investigative journalists there. The regime wants to project continuity and strength to the outside world. That's why Ayatollah Khamenei very quickly named Mohammad Mokhber as the successor or at least the interim president. I don't think we'll see much of a change in Iran foreign policy, its support for terrorism, or anything like that. You know, they want to project strength and continuity. However, I imagine inside the regime, there's real panic right now that this has happened. And there's a real risk for the regime of more instability. Raisi was widely hated by many of the Iranian people, and many of them will be glad to see him gone. And so we might well see another round of domestic protests against the regime or for further domestic unrest. And so that's why Tehran is trying to very carefully control the information that comes out and project that picture of continuity and stability, when in fact, that may not be the case internally.

REICHARD: In past weeks, we’ve talked about Iran’s relationship with countries like Russia and China, and aggression towards the U.S. and China, and also Iran’s nuclear program. Is there a particular long-term consequence of this crash that you’re going to be watching for?

INBODEN: The main factor is going to be who but comes who succeeds Ayatollah Khamenei, like who is the next leader of Iran? Whether it's one of these individuals or whether they go with a some sort of Leadership Council plural leadership, perhaps. Because you're right, the the bigger geopolitical story here has been the deepening ties between Iran and Russia, between Iran and China, even between Iran and North Korea. Those four countries now comprise this new kind of Eurasian belt of tyranny, I've called them in other contexts before – all very hostile to the United States. And so Moscow and Beijing in particular are going to be very concerned that whatever happens in Iran, Iran continues to be a reliable supporter of theirs. You know, Iran's providing a lot of drones to Russia, for example, for its aggression against Ukraine. Russia has been, you know, providing missile technology to North Korea and benefiting from that as well. And of course, they provide a lot of oil to China. And so those other countries, all very hostile to United States, are also, I'm sure, very concerned about what happens next with Iran.

REICHARD: Will Inboden is a former member of the National Security Council staff. He now teaches at the University of Florida and writes for WORLD Opinions.

Will, thanks for your analysis!

INBODEN: Thanks, Mary. Great to be with you as always.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Five opinions. The Supreme Court handed them down over the past week and a half.

First, a copyright case called Warner Chappell v Nealy, arising from the use of this song from 1983:

MUSIC: [Pretty Tony version of Jam the Box]

REICHARD: A 6 to 3 majority allows a music producer to seek damages for alleged copyright infringements— no matter when the infringement occurred.

Music producer Sherman Nealy helped create that song with a collaborator. Then he served time in prison, not learning until after he left that his collaborator licensed the music to another publisher. So, he sued for copyright infringement and damages.

MAST: The legal question was whether he could do that if the infringement happened more than three years before bringing a lawsuit. That’s the time limit laid out in the Copyright Act.

But is that three years from discovering the alleged infringement? Or three years from when the initial infringement occurred?

Nealy’s lawyer Joe Earnhardt had the winning argument back in February:

JOE EARNHARDT: It has to be actual notice, it's a discovery rule. It turns on what the plaintiff knows, not on what the defendant did.

Dissenting Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch pointed out the majority just assumed, rather than decided, that the three year time clock starts when a copyright owner first discovers the infringement.

REICHARD: Yeah, expect to see this crop up again in some future term.

The second opinion is another timing question, Harrow versus the Department of Defense. It’s a win for a federal employee who missed a deadline to file an appeal from an agency that denied him a hardship exemption from furlough. He had a pretty good excuse: the agency took five years to make the ruling and by that time he’d moved and never received notice so that he could appeal on time.

A unanimous court says this deadline is not the strict kind, because Congress didn’t say it was. Still, the case is remanded to lower court to figure out other aspects of the dispute.

MAST: Next, Smith v Spizzirri is an arbitration dispute in the workplace. The Federal Arbitration Act says when all the claims in a lawsuit are subject to arbitration, the courts shall pause involvement, issue a “stay,” pending the outcome of the arbitration proceedings.

But here, the lower court just dismissed the case outright. A unanimous court ruled that’s a no-no… when a party asks for a stay.

Chief Justice John Roberts said as much during oral argument in April:

JUSTICE ROBERTS: You’re saying it’s more trouble to let the thing just sit there than to file a new action? …It seems to me that the alternative would be a lot more burdensome than just sitting there.

REICHARD: Alright, moving on. The Supreme Court ruled against two women whose cars were seized by the police and impounded for over a year.

The case is Culley versus Marshall. These women loaned their cars to men who were then pulled over by police, who in turn found drugs in the vehicles. The women claimed the “innocent owner” defense and eventually got their cars back.

But they sued, arguing they were entitled to a prompt hearing after seizure.

A majority of 6 justices disagreed. The Due Process Clause only requires a timely forfeiture hearing, not a separate preliminary hearing. States can require those, but the Constitution does not.

Lawyer for the state, Edmond LaCour argued persuasively back in October:

EDMOND LACOUR: They’re essentially just asking to have the final hearing 2,3 weeks after and that’s gonna cause serious problems. You will gain speed, but you will lose accuracy.

Accuracy lost, perhaps, but in dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that due process sometimes does require a minimal retention hearing before taking away an innocent person’s car for months at a time.

MAST: And lastly, a 7-to-2 decision that keeps the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau funded through the Federal Reserve System. Most agencies are funded via money Congress allocates annually. On that basis, payday lenders brought a challenge after the CFPB limited the number of times a lender could withdraw money from a borrower’s bank account.

The opinion cited the text of the Constitution as well as English and American history to uphold the bureau’s funding scheme.

You could hear the eventual ruling in this comment from Justice Thomas to a lawyer for the payday lender during oral argument last October:

THOMAS: I get your point that this is different, that it’s odd, that they’ve never gone this far. But not having gone this far is not a constitutional problem.

Other agencies funded outside the appropriations process include the Post Office and the Patent Office.

But dissenting Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch wrote that perpetual funding defeats the purpose of the Appropriations Clause, and that the Framers would be “shocked, and even horrified” by CFPB’s funding scheme. 

LINDSAY MAST: Sometimes, nothing hits quite like a sandwich. Just like Chandler said to Joey in the old TV sitcom Friends:

AUDIO: Wow! That sandwich really does smell good. / Did I say you could smell it?

It’s one thing to smell a sandwich, but how do you define it? It became a matter for the courts, and an Indiana judge decided it.

You see, a new development allowed for “made to order” “sandwich-bar style” restaurants, but not your typical fast food places.

So what about made-to-order sandwiches that involve a tortilla, some meat, and cheese. And usually go by the name “taco” or “burrito?”

Well, the judge ruled that’s a Mexican-style sandwich, so the store that wants to open up can do so. And for the record–Greek gyros, Indian naan wraps, and Vietnamese Banh Mi would all pass the test too.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: I guess that wraps it up!

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

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Tuesday, May 21st. You’re listening to WORLD Radio and we’re glad you’re along with us today! Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: wildlife restoration.

A report released this month cites human factors as the cause of most Texas wildfires since 2000. That includes the latest fire that burned over 1 million acres. The economic loss from the Smokehouse Creek Fire could exceed $1 billion.

MAST: So, restoring the land is vital to recovery.

Reporter Bonnie Pritchett brings us a story from the Panhandle on competing best practices to care for the land and everything on it.

BRODY LARKIN: My name is Brody Larkin, and I am the wildlife biologist here at the Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area…

BONNIE PRITCHETT: Larkin steers his Texas Parks and Wildlife Department truck onto the 5,400 acre Wildlife Management Area, or WMA. It’s been almost three weeks since the wildfire burned 98 percent of the property.

Larkin explains the role of the WMA as he scans flame-scarred cottonwoods and charred stubble of undergrowth for signs of life.

LARKIN: Texas has wildlife management areas as a research and demonstration site for different wildlife management techniques, and range management techniques. Not only for, maybe, their cattle operations, but as well as for native wildlife and native habitat.

The grasses and thickets that once covered the WMA and the surrounding ranches fed livestock and wildlife. They also provided cover for fawns and nesting quail and turkeys from predators.

LARKIN: And not having them is going to be an issue. But we estimate that with good rainfall and just good conditions, they'll have their habitat mostly back by midsummer. So, it's all a matter of when we get the rains and if we get the rains, but if we don't, it's just going to take longer, but they will recover.

Cal Ferguson can’t wait.

CAL FERGUSON: In this part of the world, we get 20 inches of rain a year, and we go six months without it at times.

Ferguson owns a hunting outfitting service that provides guided hunts on 100,000 acres of land he leases from area ranchers. More than half it burned, killing or displacing the wildlife. He began canceling hunts.

By April, $50,000 in potential income had gone up in smoke.

FERGUSON: There's not a lot of safety net for people in this industry like there is for cattle, the cattle ranchers. The majority of them had insurance on the cattle. There's no such thing as insurance for free range and wildlife. Wildlife belongs to the State of Texas, not the landowner.

And since he doesn’t own the land he operates on, he has no claim to losses incurred there either.

In Texas, hunting is a multi-billion-industry. Restoration of the Panhandle’s wildlife populations to pre-fire numbers could take years.

Reece Watson, a pastor, grew up witnessing the Panhandle fires. Since February he's been assisting with disaster relief. That includes helping ranchers with the gruesome and heartbreaking task of dispatching gravely injured cattle and burying them with those killed in the blaze. The ranchers told him they've lost more than livestock.

REECE WATSON: And then on every single ranch, almost without exception, you can look in the fields and they would say, “Hey, that's where my deer stand is, or was.” And, “That's where my feeder was.” And you could go out there and you could look and it was all burned and there wasn't anything left.

Ferguson explains the symbiotic relationship between landowner and hunter.

FERGUSON: It is important, and I was afraid that it would be overlooked, that a lot of these ranchers make up to 20% of their income off of the wildlife. And so it's a great supplement to them.

Ranchers lease their land for hunting rights.

FERGUSON: And so it's an integral part of everybody being able to make it all work around here.

How will that work now?

FERGUSON: Wildlife management having always been my passion, I immediately went to supplemental feeding.

That meant distributing hay and feed in the burned areas for the wildlife. Donated hay pouring into the region fed livestock but didn’t provide the nutrient value wildlife needed.

FERGUSON: I had put a post out on one of the wildfire update pages: “Hey, let's not forget about the wildlife. You know, they're going to be important to see through this as well.” And it just exploded.

Truckloads of wildlife specific hay and high protein feed began arriving faster than volunteers could distribute it to the landowners.

State agencies discourage supplemental feeding. They argue the practice further stresses damaged habitat and can slow recovery. Also, wildlife congregating in feeding areas can spread disease.

Brody Larkin shares that concern. The WMA biologist knows the situation looks bleak but insists recovery that is best for the land, the wildlife, and the people who live here takes time.

LARKIN: We have not supplemented any feeding out here. And we don't have any plans to. We're just gonna let nature be nature and we're just gonna let them find their forage and there's always going to be something for them out here.

Larkin, Cal Ferguson, and Reece Watson all have their roots in the Panhandle. They generally agree on land management best practices, including the “let nature take its course” perspective.

Up to a point. A frustrated Watson explains.

WATSON: It's not natural. I mean, a wildfire is natural. But none of these fires started from a natural point. These were not lightning strikes. These were not freak accidents that happen by a force of nature. These were man-caused accidents.

The Smokehouse Creek Fire began when neglected power poles snapped in high winds sending live wires into dry grass.

While the repeated human cause for the destruction frustrates Ferguson it doesn’t change his circumstances.

FERGUSON: I've told most of my buddies in the industry that I probably would just have to get a day job until something changed. God has seen us through this quite a few times. And even though there were many times along the way that we hadn't been able to see the other side of it. You just have to have faith that there is one. We’ve burned out before and we're still here.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Bonnie Pritchett in the Texas Panhandle.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Tuesday, May 21st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next: WORLD Opinions commentator Jerry Bowyer on recognizing God’s wisdom in the gift of work.

JERRY BOWYER: The long-term prospects for the American economy are not mainly dependent on this year’s election. Rather, they’re mainly dependent on a shift in culture, because culture is more important than policy. For instance, the “Great Takeoff” was an economic boom that occurred shortly after the American founding. It wasn’t based on getting tax rates exactly right so much as getting human nature and prudential virtue right. It followed a theological shift towards the virtue of commerce among Puritan thinkers slightly before the founding.

Since then, however, the idea that hard work is morally praiseworthy has fallen on hard times.

That loss is real, and its effects are behind the weird distortions we’re seeing in the labor market. There’s The Great Resignation, in which masses of people quit their jobs and don’t come back, and “quiet quitting” in which employees quit working without actually quitting their jobs.

It’s true that female work participation is back to pre-COVID levels as of this month. But males are at half their pre-COVID levels. That illustrates the bigger point–Americans are entering the labor force later, putting in fewer hours, spending less work time at work, and retiring earlier. In short, we’re lazy. And laziness is a sin. If that assessment grates on modern ears, then that just illustrates the problem.

Financial advisor David Bahnsen’s new book just might be what we need. Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Your Life is a manifesto in favor of regaining our Biblical view of work, what used to be known as the Protestant work ethic. Bahnsen bewails the common Christian tendency to put work in competition with worship or family. He also criticizes those who see work as worthy of Christian approval only when it has a “spiritual” side effect such as evangelism.

But work is worthy because mankind was created for it. The God of the Bible commands us, “Fill the earth and subdue it.” He also calls us to follow His pattern of work and rest: “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh is a Sabbath…” Note the proportions, six to one. How’s that for work/life balance? Work, worship, family … these things are life, not something to be balanced against it.

Have you ever heard a sermon against laziness? Therein is the problem. Pulpits are the conscience of the Church, and the Church is the conscience of the nation. Too often, the Church’s only references to work are admonitions to never, ever let work interfere with a little league game or Wednesday night Bible study. The message we’re sending is that work just really isn’t that important.

The greater the welfare benefits, the more we need an internal moral compass. COVID stimulus plans, Obamacare, and other government programs helped a generation of young men wrongly channel their God-given ambition into video-games. Social Security did the same for the other end of the demographic curve. That means that work has become financially optional for many. But work is not morally optional. It is a command and sluggardly behavior is disobedience. Apparently, a lot of folks need to be reminded of that fact.

I’m Jerry Bowyer.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Tomorrow: Joe Biden and Donald Trump prepare to debate in Georgia…on new terms. We’ll talk about it on Washington Wednesday. And ideas have consequences for helping the homeless in Portland, Oregon. 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: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” —Ephesians 1:3, 4

Go now in grace and peace.

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