The World and Everything in It — May 4, 2020

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The relationship between public health and religious liberty is under strain. But some public officials are balancing the two just fine.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Legal Docket.

Also today, the Monday Moneybeat: negative economic growth for the first time since 2014 and the biggest decline since the financial crisis. We’ll put the numbers in perspective.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, May 4th. 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: Now here’s the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: More states begin slow push to jumpstart economies » More states continue to slowly reopen for business. Florida is among the latest states to roll back restrictions. Governor Ron DeSantis told reporters…

DESANTIS: I announced today on Monday as part of Phase One, we’re going to begin doing our state parks so people can go. Now there’s obviously going to continue to be social distancing. We don’t want to have big crowds. But if you’re going out there with your family, that’s a healthy thing to do. 

Dine-in restaurants and many retail locations can also begin reopening today, but only at 25 percent capacity, and with other precautions. But that reopening will exclude three counties in South Florida, which have been hardest-hit by the virus. 

And over the weekend, restaurants, stores and other businesses reopened in more than a dozen states under strict conditions. 

Among the restaurant chains reopening in numerous states are Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and Longhorn Steakhouse as well as Dickey’s Pit BBQ. And the company’s CEO Laura Rey Dickey, said it’s taking safety seriously. 

DICKEY’S: You should see that we are prepared. You should see hand sanitizer stations by the doors. You should see that tables are set, but again, only at 25 percent here in Texas. 

Each state is moving at its own speed and with its own restrictions to avoid another spike in infections. But the reopenings on Friday marked the single biggest one-day push yet to jumpstart state economies. 

Demonstrators gather at Michigan capital in defiance of lockdown » Michigan is not among the states moving to reopen. And over the weekend, large crowds of protesters gathered outside the state Capitol to protest lockdown orders. Hundreds of protesters ignored social distancing guidelines in defiance of Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who extended the emergency stay-at-home order. 

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx reacted to the protests on Fox News Sunday. 

BIRX: It’s devastatingly worrisome to me personally, because if they go home and infect their grandmother or grandfather, who has a co-morbid condition, and they have a serious or very unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives. 

Birx added “We need to protect each other at the same time we’re voicing our discontent.”

Michigan has enforced some of the strictest coronavirus safety measures in the country. But protesters have gathered at other state’s capitals as well. 

FDA approves remdesivir for emergency use » The Food and Drug Administration has given Gilead Sciences the green light to distribute the drug remdesivir to patients with serious COVID-19 illnesses. 

FDA Administrator Daniel O’Day made the announcement over the weekend. 

O’DAY: We authorized Gilead’s application for emergency use authorization for the use of remdesivir in hospitalized patients. 

For now, the intravenous drug will be limited to patients with a critical need, such as those on ventilators or with other severe breathing problems. 

A recent NIH study revealed that the drug appears to help some people recover faster. In the study of more than a thousand hospitalized patients, participants recovered 31 percent faster. 

Intel report details China’s coronavirus coverup » A group of intelligence agencies from five countries authored a scathing memo about the Chinese government’s coverup of the coronavirus. 

The group known as “Five Eyes” includes intel officials from the United States, Canada, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand. The Daily Telegraph obtained the 15-page dossier on Saturday, which lays out the case against the ruling Chinese Communist Party. 

Among the key findings, the dossier notes: 

The “deadly denial of human-to-human transmission,” destruction of evidence from laboratories … and the government’s refusal to let international scientists in to investigate the origin of the virus. 

It also notes that China has refused to provide live virus samples to outside scientists working on a vaccine. And some of the Chinese doctors, scientists, and activists who spoke out about the virus have been punished or have disappeared. 

On ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ramped up criticism of China. 

POMPEO: Remember, China has a history of infecting the world. And they have a history of running substandard laboratories. These are not the first times that we’ve had a world exposed to viruses as the result of failures in a Chinese lab. 

He acknowledged that the intelligence community is not yet certain that the coronavirus came from a lab in Wuhan, China. But he said there is a—quote—“significant amount of evidence” that it did. 

He did stress that he had no reason to believe that the virus was deliberately spread. But he added that Chinese leaders clearly and “intentionally concealed the severity” of the outbreak.  

North, South Korean troops exchange fire after Kim reemerges » North and South Korean troops exchanged fire along their border on Sunday. It was the first such incident since the countries took unprecedented steps to ease tensions in 2018. It didn’t cause any known casualties on either side. 

South Korean officials said troops from the North fired several bullets at a guard post inside the border zone. South Korea responded with a total of 20 rounds of warning shots on two occasions and issued a warning broadcast.

The U.S. government believes North Korea’s firing to be accidental. 

The exchange of fire came a day after North Korean state news broadcast video of leader Kim Jong Un reappearing in public after a 20-day absence.

AUDIO: [Sound of North Korean news broadcast]

Kim reportedly attended a ceremony marking the completion of a fertilizer factory near Pyongyang. The video showed Kim smiling and walking around the facilities, ending weeks of speculation about his health and rumors of his death.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: COVID-19 challenges to religious liberty.

Plus, Trillia Newbell on the right response to coronavirus fatigue.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER: It’s Monday morning and we’re back at it for another week of  The World and Everything in It. Today is the 4th of May, 2020. 

Good morning to you, I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. I expect the Supreme Court will hand down opinions this morning and at 10-am Eastern, a first for the U.S. Supreme Court: oral argument via teleconference!

The court will make an audio feed available to the public through a media pool in real time. That’s also new.

First, the justices will hear a trademark dispute over the name “Booking.com.”  The word “booking” is rather generic, but the question is whether adding “dotcom” to it changes anything.

EICHER: Three other cases on this week’s argument docket, including a name we’ve seen before: Little Sisters of the Poor. 

And here we go again on that one, eight years on. Now this time, it’s a consolidated case, with the same dispute at its core: whether Obamacare requires religious employers to provide coverage for abortifacient drugs. Obviously, nuns are Catholic and have sincerely held religious beliefs about such things.

REICHARD: The quick story is the Trump administration expanded who could claim an exemption from the rule, and two states sued to stop that because they say the government didn’t hold a notice and comment period. They argue it’s required under a law called the Administrative Procedures Act.

In other news, bans on church services in light of coronavirus continue to rankle. These are edicts from public officials ostensibly to try to contain the spread. The problem comes when those officials fail to take into consideration First Amendment rights.

EICHER: We’ve told you about that sort of trouble from Louisville, Kentucky. The mayor there prohibited drive-in church services, even though the church did maintain CDC guidelines. 

As did officials in one county in New York who’d issued similar prohibitions on religious services. Now, those particular officials relented and either reached a settlement or backed off altogether.

REICHARD: And then there’s the state of Washington, whose governor Jay Inslee is not backing down. On March 23, he issued an executive order that prohibited people from leaving their homes or participating in social, spiritual, and recreational gatherings of any kind regardless of the number of participants. 

Social, spiritual, recreational. One of those is not like the others. Only one touches on First Amendment rights. 

And on April 21st, Governor Inslee updated reopening plans.

INSLEE: We have simply got to redouble our efforts to protect the most vulnerable amongst us. We need more behavioral health services for anxiety and depression and substance abuse. Because the effects of this pandemic have hit more than just our immune systems and our bank accounts. And obviously, we need to come together. And we know that only science and data and informed reasoning and  confidence in ourselves is going to lift us out of this crisis.

For believers, the disconnect there is that faith does help the vulnerable, the depressed, the anxious. 

Some officials do get it, though, and that caught my attention as well. 

Back in Kentucky last week, a battle between the governor and the state attorney general. 

Governor Andy Beshear banned religious services of all kinds, and said that “life sustaining” activities don’t include religious services, although law firms, accountants, and the media by his definition fit into that life sustaining category.

EICHER: The attorney general you mentioned who disagreed with his governor on the law is Attorney General Daniel Cameron. 

At a press conference on Wednesday, Cameron laid out the case for why “one of these is not like the others.” I think it’s worthwhile to consider this, perhaps especially during a pandemic when maybe it’s a bit easier to major on urgent things and lose track of first things.

What he said is really important and it’s worth more than a mere soundbite. It’s a long statement and we’ve cut it back a bit, to keep it under two minutes.

Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron:

CAMERON: Simply put, the current prohibition against in person church services is, in the view of this office, unconstitutional. I’m reminded of this every time I drive by a big box store and see dozens of cars. I’m also reminded of this every time I read that the governor has ordered law enforcement to record the license plates numbers of people who simply want to worship and practice their faith. 

My friends, churches deserve equal treatment commensurate with their First Amendment rights. Corporate worship is essential and central to many faiths and finds a special place in the Constitution, a place that we must defend. Even in the midst of a pandemic the Constitution must be given its proper meaning.

The Constitution is not suspended in times of crisis. I think that the orders that have been put in place by the governor have been singling out churches. I don’t believe they are narrowly tailored. So I find that the Constitution protects churches, that the Constitution allows for churches to be open, assuming that they’re able to abide by the CDC guidelines.

Let me analyze a bit of what General Cameron is saying here, because constitutionally, it’s crucial: If the government needs to interfere in any way with a right under the First Amendment, it must tread very carefully.

Americans have certain rights, and our government must jump through several hoops before it can burden those rights. That means the government has to show the law meets a compelling government interest, and that regulation to achieve that interest is using the least restrictive means. 

Here, the stated government interest is to flatten the coronavirus infection rate so as not to overwhelm hospitals. That’s a compelling government interest, and except for some hot spots like New York City, it’s been very successful.

EICHER: Then the next question the government must ask, is the rule to protect public health narrowly tailored to achieve the compelling goal? Narrowly tailored is another way to say, is it the least restrictive way to do it?

I think what General Cameron is saying, and many others, is when government decides what is “essential” and excludes religious services, that’s a problem.

REICHARD: Right. I’ve heard perhaps a better question for the government to be asking is “Is this activity reasonably safe?” Rather than “Is it essential?”  

Nothing is 100% safe, of course. But if “essential” doesn’t include Constitutional protections, then we’ve lost that measure of safety against government overreach.

On Saturday, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that Governor Beshear of Kentucky cannot prevent drive-in church services. The judges wrote, quote,  “it’s not always easy to decide what is Caesar’s and what is God’s and that’s assuredly true in the context of a pandemic.” End quote.

Assuredly true, and always necessary under our system, crisis or no.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

MARY REICHARD: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: The Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER: Government released Gross Domestic Product numbers for the first three months of this year. But it’s largely the last two weeks of that first quarter that did the bulk of the damage. And the report shows quite a lot of it: Economic activity contracted nearly 5 percent for the quarter overall. GDP minus 4.8 percent, the sharpest quarter-to-quarter drop since the financial crisis more than a decade ago.

Consumer spending in March down from February 7.5 percent: by far the biggest month-on-month decline since the record set in 1987. 

And new claims for unemployment benefits last week, 3.8 million. 

When all is counted for April, some labor economists predict a 20 percent unemployment rate. Those are depression-era numbers: at one point back then, unemployment got as high as 25 percent. 

Just a lot of damage here.

Financial analyst and advisor David Bahnsen is on the line for our weekly conversation. David, good morning.

DAVID BAHNSEN, GUEST: Good morning, Nick.

EICHER: I do read your daily COVID and Markets blog post and of course Dividend Cafe—links, by the way, in the transcript. Now, I did note emergency approval from the Food and Drug administration for Remdesivir. But you made a point that I thought was really interesting, that this drug Remdesivir is an injectable, not a tablet, and so as you point out, “production will be difficult to scale.” So, not good news?

BAHNSEN: I’m not sure that that’s true that it’s not good news. The vast majority of therapeutics in really severe cases of things are injectables, and this particular treatment is for people who have more of a hospitalization level of COVID, so to the degree that what we’re looking to do is get people who are really sick healthy and get people who are really sick to not die, I think that this is very positive. As far as it being a household treatment with minor COVID, that was never really its intent. Remember, this particular treatment was initially developed as a potential Ebola treatment, which there was no such thing as a mild Ebola. And so COVID just happens to have 97-99 percent of its cases be very mild and remdesivir is not intended for that. But to the degree that it has shown tremendous promise for potentially fatal and real severe cases and that it has expedited discharge from hospitalization, that’s what we’re looking for in that data.

EICHER: But before we have good economic news, we’re going to have to have good health news, and so in that sense, that is a big step forward. Right?

BAHNSEN: Oh, yeah, it is. And I think that we have the indication from a couple days before Friday that this test came directly from those clinical trials being done by the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease. And so  the promise of this treatment, I think, is very encouraging.

But, back to the economic side, Nick, I do think that we are in a tough position in that there’s no going back now in the timeline that the shutdown took place. It’s very hard to measure, it’s very hard for me to quantify, but I think I can paint a picture that there was a certain amount of permanent damage that was going to be done if the shutdown lasted two weeks. And that permanent damage was very minimal. And then not only did the present damage obviously continue, I mean, this is a sort of self-evident fact, the present damage continued to go higher and higher as the shutdown lasted longer, but I think the scale of permanent damage has gone up as well as we went into three weeks, four weeks, five—now we’re sitting here at roughly six weeks. But from start to finish, you’re going to end up with a minimum of 10 weeks of some form of shutdown that changes the picture of how much economic damage was done from what it originally could have been back in March.

EICHER: So we’re looking at jobless claims, just to run through some of the numbers here, David. 3.8 million. Again, just astronomical numbers. Things we wouldn’t have even imagined in February before this broke. But 3.8 million is fewer than the number of the previous week 4.4. And 4.4 was less than the 5.5 the week before. So, trending in the right direction. I mean, do you take comfort from that?

BAHNSEN: I don’t take comfort from it because it’s so obvious that that’s what was going to be the case. You get a point where because this is measuring initial jobless claims, it’s very hard for that number to go higher after the first couple weeks. Where I’ll take encouragement is when the number dips below a million, which I think is coming. And then we get a chance to see what the impact is out of the paycheck protection act, out of some of the short-term stimulus things, out of the main-street lending facility that the Fed announced this week. They’re expanding the criteria quite dramatically, which I think is going to open the door to even more people. 

But, Nick, if I were to speak very candidly to our listeners, I can’t measure this right now, but I can tell you qualitatively how I believe this is going to play out. For most people and their jobs and with some degree of marketable skill in the economy, they’re going to end up being re-employed, and probably very soon. 

The people that are at most vulnerability here and are most present in the unemployment data are the most expendable in the economy: are those those restaurant, food and beverage service type jobs, $8, $10, $12/hour type jobs that are very replaceable, that’s where I think it’s going to be most difficult for the stimulus to reach down and impact. And so we’re going to have a lasting effect there. 

But on the economic side, I do have every expectation that those in the lower end of the income spectrum are going to feel this the greatest.

EICHER: We saw a GDP number for the first quarter, no big surprise, it was negative. -4.8 percent. It’s so backward looking maybe not even useful. But, still, it’s kind of a final score in the sense that it tells us what happened in the first quarter and that those last couple of weeks in March really wiped out any kind of gains that we might have seen in the first, what, 10 weeks of the beginning of the year 2020. And then they say that is the sharpest drop quarter to quarter since the 2018 financial crisis. So, no big surprise but what do you take from the GDP numbers?

BAHNSEN: EIYou mean the 2008 financial crisis. And obviously that ended up lasting much, much longer, that GDP contraction, from when in hindsight we saw it officially began to when it officially ended was the longest period of contraction since the Depression. 

The 4.8 percent drop in Q1 is not just from two weeks. Apple came out in, I believe it was February 7th, to say that they already were seeing a dramatic decrease in order flow and supply-chain capacity from what had happened out of the Wuhan aspect of things. So, even just from a global supply-chain standpoint, there was already some degree of impact sifting through the economy from late January all the way through February. And I believe that most companies were already making adjustments on the margin by late February. 

The violence of GDP contraction comes from the dying consumer. And that, you’re right, is certainly the last two weeks of March. So, I am in the school of thought that says that if Q2 ends up being negative 20 or negative 40, there’s no difference between the two numbers. How could that be? Well, because from a human impact, that’s not going to measure the human side anyway. That’s measured in the wages and the unemployment net of stimulus. And so that part is baked in. And then there’s just varying degrees of the impact to trade, inventory, and production. 

The production side is the one that I’m most concerned with because what it means when we get the production side of our economy, the making of goods and services, up and running again, I know everything else falls into place. Now, you could say that’s an ideological argument because I’m a supply-sider, but I derive my ideology from my view of economics. 

EICHER: David Bahnsen, financial analyst and advisor. He’s the Chief Investment Officer at the Bahnsen Group. David, thank you. We’ll talk to you next week. 

BAHNSEN: Thanks again for having me, Nick.

NICK EICHER: Today is Monday, May 4th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Fifty years ago today, the Ohio National Guard killed four student protesters at Kent State University during an anti-war rally. The incident shocked a nation already weary of huge casualties in the Vietnam War.

EICHER: Today, to mark the tragedy: a virtual commemoration online.  

Correspondent Maria Baer now with a special edition of The WORLD History Book, taking us through what happened on that day.

MARIA BAER, REPORTER: April, 1970. The Vietnam War rages on for the 15th year, despite growing anti-war sentiment across the United States. 

AUDIO: [PROTEST]

The draft is forcing young men off to war, and political leaders are struggling to define “victory.” President Richard Nixon had recently promised to withdraw 150,000 American troops. But on April 30th, he makes a different announcement. 

Addressing the nation in front of a large, colorful map of the region, Nixon lays out his plans to move U.S. troops into Cambodia. 

NIXON: This is not an invasion of Cambodia…

The announcement starts a new wave of anti-war protests across the country, many on college campuses.

SONG: [ALL WE ARE SAYING IS GIVE PEACE A CHANCE]

May 1st. Student protestors at Kent State University in northeastern Ohio clash with local police. Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes issues a state of emergency, calling in the National Guard.

Saturday, May 2nd. As the National Guard arrives, hundreds of Kent State students gather at the empty ROTC building on campus and set it on fire. Alan Canfora, a junior that year and an active anti-war protestor, sees some of his friends throw Molotov cocktails. 

CANFORA: The building went up in flames, I mean it was a glorious fire, you could see the flames from miles away…

The National Guard disperses the students with tear gas.

Monday, May 4th. It’s a sunny spring day. As students walk to class, dozens of National Guardsmen roam the campus, armed with rifles. Despite a campus-wide restriction on crowds, students gather for an anti-war rally at the Victory Bell on the campus Commons. 

NEWSCAST: [VICTORY BELL RINGING, STRIKE, STRIKE, STRIKE]

One student, Dean Kahler, gives a short speech.

CANFORA: He said, ‘Is it the feeling of the students on our campus that we should join the national student strike to protest the invasion of Cambodia?’

Somewhere a photographer captures a now famous photo of Canfora, with long wavy hair, in a standoff with eight National Guardsmen. 

CANFORA: I was waving a black protest flag, I was shouting at them, I was cursing at them, shouting insults toward them, but I didn’t think that they would shoot.

After dispensing tear gas, the guardsmen retreat back up what’s called Blanket Hill. 

NEWSCAST: PROTEST SOUNDS

But a few minutes later, at 12:24 p.m., they open fire. This is actual audio of the shooting, courtesy of NBC News.

AUDIO: [SHOOTING]

They hit 13 students. Canfora tries to take cover behind a tree, but he’s shot in the wrist.

CANFORA:  And I looked, I felt the pain, I saw the blood, just dripping down into the grass, and I thought to myself – I cannot believe I have been shot!

Canfora’s roommate Thomas Grace is shot through the ankle—Canfora sees his boot blown off.

NEWSCAST:  SOUND OF YELLING

In 13 seconds, the National Guard fires 67 bullets. Two student protesters, Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause, don’t survive their wounds. Neither do Bill Schroeder or Sandra Scheuer—they’re killed as they walk through a parking lot to class, nearly 400 feet away from the guardsmen.

When the popping of gunfire stops, photojournalism student John Filo takes a photo of a young woman, mouth open in a scream, standing over the body of Jeffrey Miller. He’s lying facedown on the pavement; his arms tucked awkwardly beneath him. He’s dead. The photo would later win a Nobel Prize, becoming an icon of the anti-war era.

NEWSCAST: And today the guardsmen opened fire on the students, killing four of them, two young men and two young women…

To this day, the National Guard officially maintains there was no direct order to fire. Guardsmen say they were in fear for their lives; that students were throwing rocks. Some guardsmen claim there was a sniper on campus, but the FBI later debunks that theory. 

NEWSCAST: What the investigators have to determine then, is whether indeed there was a sniper, and whether the guard was justified in firing its weapons…

A grand jury indicts eight National Guardsmen on charges of violating Kent State students’ civil rights. All those charges are later dropped.

In 2007, Canfora uncovers an audiotape—recorded May 4th by a student from his dorm window. 

AUDIO: [AUDIO TAPE]

Canfora tells the FBI it’s proof there was a command to fire. He says within the garbled audio, he hears a guardsmen yell: “Right here, point, fire.”

Five years later, following analysis by multiple audio experts, the FBI says the tape is inconclusive.

Today, Kent State’s campus is full of reminders of what happened May 4th, 1970. The site of the shootings is now a National Historic Landmark.

A granite memorial near the Commons is surrounded by a field of nearly 59-thousand daffodils – one for each American killed in the Vietnam War.

Popular 60’s rock’n’roll band Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young release a new song just a few weeks after the incident, called “Ohio.”

AUDIO: …four dead in Ohio…

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book, I’m Maria Baer.

MARY REICHARD: Today is Monday, May 4th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. We each can succumb to apathy at times. WORLD commentator Trillia Newbell advises that we guard against it.

TRILLIA NEWBELL, COMMENTATOR: Recently I turned on our local TV channel to check the weather. News on our weather conditions would come after a special update on the coronavirus.

Later, settling in to write a devotional, I thought I’d take a quick glance at one of my online news sources. The top headline—and many of the stories—featured the coronavirus.

I opened up Slack, an app for groups to communicate with one another. The topic of the day? You guessed it, the coronavirus. 

For the past two months, I can’t turn around without seeing news about the coronavirus. And it is not as if I haven’t contributed. Almost every interview, writing assignment, or talk I’ve done during our global lockdown has been on the coronavirus. Each one has been necessary. But something in me changed last week—and I’m guessing I’m not alone.

I found myself getting irritated by coronavirus news. I didn’t want to hear anything else about it. Just as many states are opening their doors, I’m ready to close my ears to the important information about next steps. I have coronavirus fatigue.

Admittedly, it is a privilege to be able to shut my ears, and one that I cannot and should not explore. I have a fairly healthy lifestyle and although I have slight asthma, it’s controlled. Both my husband and I can work remotely. My kids have everything they need for school. So far, the coronavirus has been a burden only for our schedule. 

So, as I evaluated my recent apathy toward the pandemic, I was convicted of selfish pride. Even as I type, the Lord is gently correcting me. While inconvenient for many of us, this is a life or death situation for my mom, my in-laws, and millions of people around the world. 

Hearing yet another news story about the virus may be white noise to some, but hearing updates from state and local governments could be a much-needed life-line for small businesses. 

It may seem like another commentary on COVID-19 is a waste of space. But maybe it’s just what you needed to hear to remind you, as I’m reminding myself, that we are far from the finish line. We’re likely not even close!

As the Lord gently allowed me to repent, I was in awe of how much He loves His people. It truly is His kindness that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). The Lord is kindly showing me that, although I don’t have to be informed 24/7, I do want to pray, I do need patience, and I do want to care. 

Now is not the time to withdraw in apathy. Now, maybe more than ever, is when you and I can shine the brightest. There will be disagreements for how we reopen. There will be questions about wearing masks and social distancing. And, sadly, there will be more deaths to mourn. 

You and I have an opportunity to continue to share hope. That’s the calling on our lives, whether COVID-19 is in the headlines or not.

I’m Trillia Newbell.

NICK EICHER: Tomorrow: While some hospitals are struggling to deal with the influx of COVID-19 cases, others have empty rooms. We’ll tell you about the financial hardships that’s creating, especially at rural hospitals.

And, a new report on the countries where it’s most dangerous to be a person of faith.

That and more tomorrow. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD: 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.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

Thanks for listening, and go now in grace and peace.

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