The World and Everything in It — May 5, 2020

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Coronavirus policy is wreaking havoc on the healthcare system trying to manage it.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom released its annual report. Chairman Tony Perkins will talk about that. 

Plus our Classic Book of the Month.

And WORLD commentator Kim Henderson on our memories of Mom.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, May 5th. 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 the news. Here’s Kent Covington, who is, by the way,  now officially recovered from coronavirus. So glad.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Thanks Mary! And thank you to everyone who kept me in their prayers. I appreciate it more than I can tell you. 

Senate back on Capitol Hill, House delays return » And how to guard against the coronavirus is on the minds of lawmakers this week. Senators returned to Capitol Hill on Monday, but members of the House did not. 

Several members of Congress have tested positive for COVID-19. And Democratic leaders say they’re following the advice of the House physician by not reconvening this week. But Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy laid out a GOP plan on Monday that he said would allow the House to get back to work safely.

MCCARTHY: We sit here and we look at the doctors, the delivery drivers, the dispatchers. They’re doing everything they can to work through this pandemic, except Congress is not. Republicans have a plan to get us back to work and the first phase is, let’s get our committees back. 

McCarthy added “we don’t have to have all our committees at once, but let’s work on the bills that are most important.”

Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Pelosi said the House may return to session as soon as next Monday, May 11th.

Meat processing plants reopen after presidential order » Following a presidential order, meat processing companies are working to safely reopen plants recently shut down over coronavirus outbreaks. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports. 

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: With possible meat shortages looming, President Trump last week issued an executive order under the Defense Production Act, ordering meat plants to stay open. 

And on Monday, a South Dakota pork processing plant took its first steps toward reopening. That after being shuttered for more than two weeks due to a coronavirus outbreak that infected more than 800 employees.

At the Smithfield Foods plant in Sioux Falls, employees filed through a tent where they were screened for fever and other signs of COVID-19. The company has also reportedly installed dividers on the production line and is requiring everyone to wear masks.

Other plants reopening include a Tyson Foods facility in Indiana. The company said it’s resumed “limited production” Monday at a pork plant where nearly 900 employees tested positive. 

The United Food and Commercial Workers union has called for stricter measures than the CDC recommendations. They would include mandating that workers stand 6 feet apart on production lines. And the union has appealed to governors for help enforcing worker safety rules. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Report: death toll, new cases could rise as states reopen » Many other businesses are beginning to reopen as well in more than a dozen states. 

But even as state officials work to offset the risks of reopening for business, according to a new report, the federal government could be bracing for a spike in new coronavirus cases.

The New York Times reported Monday that it obtained an internal Trump administration document. It included a chart created by FEMA based on government modeling. And the Times said the chart forecasts that by June 1st, the country will see a daily death toll of 3,000 and about 200,000 new infections each day. 

The United States has roughly 25,000 new cases daily right now. 

On Sunday, President Trump said the U.S. death toll could climb as high as 100,000. But he expressed hope that safety measures will keep the number much lower and he added that the country cannot continue to stand still. 

TRUMP: At some point we have to reopen our country. And people are going to be safe. We’ve learned a lot. We’ve learned about the tremendous contagion, but we have no choice. We have to—we can’t stay closed as a country. We’re not going to have a country left. 

White House spokesman Judd Deere responded to the New York Times report. He said—quote—“This is not a White House document, nor has it been presented to the coronavirus task force or gone through interagency vetting.” He added, “This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force or data that the task force has analyzed.”

J. Crew files for bankruptcy » J.Crew is the first major retailer to file for bankruptcy since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. WORLD’s Anna Johansen has that story. 

ANNA JOHANSEN, REPORTER: J.Crew said Monday that lenders have agreed to convert almost $1.7 billion of its debt into equity. It’s also secured commitments for financing of $400 million.

The company launched in 1947 under the name Popular Merchandise selling low-priced women’s clothing. The company changed its name to J.Crew in 1983 and rebranded itself to compete with retailers like Lands’ End and L.L. Bean.

It became a fashion staple by the 1990s and new stores popped up across the country. But like several other major retailers, J.Crew was already in trouble before the pandemic. 

More retail bankruptcies are expected in the coming weeks with thousands of stores still shuttered.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen. 

Hall of Fame NFL coach Don Shula dies » The winningest coach in NFL history has died. 

Don Shula retired in 1995 with 347 wins.

Following a six-year career as a player, he coached the Baltimore Colts for three years and then joined the Miami Dolphins in 1970. The 4-time Coach of the Year led Miami to two championships. And his 1972 Dolphins are still the only team ever to win the Super Bowl with a perfect season.  

In a 2015 interview, Shula told the Miami Herald… 

SHULA: It’s just a fascinating game. It’s a game of making quick decisions and making the decisions that you make, make them the right decisions, make them work. That’s what coaching’s all about. 

Dolphins team officials said Shula died Monday at his home near Miami. He was 90 years old.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: a new report on religious persecution around the world.

Plus, Kim Henderson recalls the smells that remind us of Mom.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, the 5th of May, 2020. 

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

NICK EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up: international persecution.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is an independent and bipartisan government advisory group that tracks persecution of all faiths around the world. Public officials rely on the commission’s recommendations to help set U.S. foreign policy.

REICHARD: Every year USCIRF, as the commission’s known, issues a public report of its findings. This year’s report came out last week. Joining us now to talk about it is commission chairman Tony Perkins. He is also president of the Family Research Council.

REICHARD: I’d like to start with India. The USCIRF report highlights India for a sharp deterioration in religious freedom due to a new law that gave citizenship to persecuted minority groups from neighboring countries but specifically excluded Muslims. That sparked some anti-government protests, but your report also notes that the law prompted harassment and violence against minority groups that went largely unchecked. Tell us a bit more about what you learned about the challenges minority groups face in India.

PERKINS: Sure. This is not new in terms of problems in India. … Now, in this particular case in India in December of this past year, they passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, which you made reference to. And they approved the National Population Register. Now, … we have national leaders there saying that they want to do this throughout the entire country, which could ultimately leave millions of people, predominantly Muslim, stateless.

REICHARD: The report noted two bright spots based on your research this past year: Sudan and Uzbekistan. Can you talk briefly about the situation in each of these countries?

PERKINS: I can. Sudan in particular because I traveled to Sudan just a couple of months ago, met with the new prime minister Abdala Hamdock and very encouraged after three decades of an Islamist government there under Omar al Bashir, we have a transitional government in place that is actually working very aggressively to embrace religious freedom. Even though still an Islamic country, but wanting to embrace religious freedom. They’ve removed these public order laws which were used to suppress people by imposing a severe form of Sharia law. They’re now working on repealing apostasy and blasphemy laws, which would be quite significant if that’s accomplished and the prime minister said that’s their intent. So, very good news in Sudan. Uzbekistan, very similar in that they are moving to be more receptive to religious freedom for their entire population and this is being driven by an administration here in the United States that has put a high priority on religious freedom. In fact, not only has the president said this, but the secretary of state has said that their number one foreign policy objective is religious freedom. And so world leaders are taking note of that and responding accordingly. And it’s quite encouraging. Doesn’t mean we don’t have problems. We’ve got some significant problems around the world, but we do see some bright spots as a result of the leadership of this country.

REICHARD: Your report also highlighted growing anti-Semitism, especially in Europe. Tell us a little bit about that and what you’d like to see the administration do to help address that problem.

PERKINS: Well, the reason—I mean, there’s two reasons everyone should be concerned by this. We don’t want to see history repeat itself in what what we saw in the 1930s and 40s in Germany. But it’s an early indicator of threat toward all religious freedom and religious expression. And so, really, the consensus, the takeaway from our hearing on Capitol Hill was that this rise of anti-semitism is the canary in the coal mine. It is a warning sign that there is growing hostility toward religious expression, religious engagement, and it’s being targeted in some places toward Jewish people. The Holocaust was real. It claimed millions of lives and it’s something we cannot allow to be repeated and so when we say “Never again,” we have to mean that with solid action steps.

REICHARD: One of your recommendations for the Trump administration is to return the annual cap for refugee resettlement to 95,000. Have you gotten any feedback from the administration on that? And how likely is the president to take that recommendation?

PERKINS: Well, that’s been an ongoing discussion that we’ve had with the administration and that’s one of those areas where we have a disagreement with the administration on this. The president, keeping to his commitments to limiting immigration. We’ve been making the point that there is a proper place for those that have no other place to go to come here as refugees and resettle. And, in fact, it’s incumbent upon us if we want to challenge other countries to defend religious freedom, that we have to take tangible steps as well and this is a part of that by allowing those refugees who have no other place to go, because of the persecution surrounding their faith, that they be allowed to come to the United States.

REICHARD: Is there anything else about this year’s report that we haven’t covered that you’d like to mention?

PERKINS: Again, when you look at the landscape around the globe, there is a growing awareness of this threat to religious freedom. This is recognized as a fundamental human right. Not just an American right, but a fundamental human right. This is a significant time and this is something that all of us can be involved in. Churches should adopt prisoners of conscience, those that are being persecuted for their faith. We need to pray for people who are being persecuted for their faith. We all have a part to play in upholding this fundamental human right of religious freedom.

REICHARD: Tony Perkins is chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He’s also president of the Family Research Council.

MARY REICHARD: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: hospitals that are financially sick.

NICK EICHER: When the coronavirus outbreak began in this country, the hospitals cleared the decks to care almost exclusively for those patients. They canceled or postponed almost all surgeries and appointments for non-life-threatening conditions. Some healthcare systems also closed clinics to reduce spread of the disease between and among patients and providers.

The financial consequences of all this may continue for a long time. WORLD reporter Sarah Schweinsberg has our story.

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REPORTER: John Crosby has arthritis in both knees. He was supposed to get one of them replaced in early March, but, at the end of February, the hospital called. 

CROSBY: They said they were sorry but they were already having to stop scheduling because of the virus… and said it looked like it would be the end of September earliest. 

Crosby was looking forward to getting back to a more active lifestyle. But he says he supports the hospital’s decision to postpone elective surgeries.

CROSBY: This is an inconvenience for us, a painful six months or eight months, but it’s not life-changing.

But canceling elective procedures is life-changing for the financial health of hospitals.

Dr. Kevin Pham is a former health policy scholar at the Heritage Foundation. 

PHAM: Hospitals make money based on the services that they bill for and then so the way you make money as a hospital is to either give expensive services or by turning over patients and that’s sort of where the the profit engine is for hospitals… 

So, when hospitals drastically cut their surgeries and services, they took a major financial hit. According to one count, more than 200 hospitals have already furloughed workers. Some are also considering layoffs.  

Rural hospitals are especially hard-hit. 

Dr. Daniel Kelly heads McKenzie County Healthcare Systems in rural Western North Dakota. During March and April, the system’s small hospital canceled all walk-in appointments and 75 percent of all surgeries. 

KELLY: In the month of April, we only had 10 operations in our whole facility and those were operations that had to occur because they were going to bring about bad outcomes did they not take place at that time.

That drastically cut revenue. 

KELLY: In March, we lost $1.9 million. I have every reason to believe that will probably continue in April at the same, if not slightly higher level. 

Kelly says with the help of the Payroll Protection Program and some savings, his hospital will be OK. 

But others won’t fare so well. Brad Gibbens is the deputy director of the Center for Rural Health at the University of North Dakota. He says more than 125 rural hospitals have closed in the last 10 years and hundreds of others are also on the edge.

GIBBENS: There’s over 500 closer to 600 that are considered really financially vulnerable, that could conceivably close.

The coronavirus could push some of them over. 

GIBBENS: Nationwide the number is, in terms of the rural hospitals, they’ve seen their revenues decline by anywhere between 40 and 80 percent.

Besides elective surgeries, hospitals are also losing money in their revenue-generating emergency rooms. Even in New York City, one of the hardest-hit coronavirus hotspots, emergency rooms reported a nearly 50 percent decline in visits in March and April. 

Dr. Bret Nicks is an ER physician at the Wake Forest Baptist Health Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His ER has also seen a drop in patients. People are either afraid of catching the virus at the hospital or confused about whether they can leave their homes. 

Fewer ER patients also cost hospitals.

NICKS: Let’s just say the financial stress is tremendous at our medical center.

It also costs some patients their health. 

NICKS: those patients that were having the typical medical things that we would see, chest pain, those were, they were having strokes that were having pulmonary processes that they attributed to non-COVID related issues, they stopped coming to the emergency department and we would see them delayed after having substantial events. 

So far Congress has allocated $175 billion for hospitals and healthcare providers, along with $25 billion to help with COVID-19 testing. Health and Human Services has only dispersed about $60 billion of that pot so far.

Katie Harris is with the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. She says the money certainly helps, but it doesn’t come close to replacing lost revenue. 

HARRIS: In Oregon, there was $291 million dollars that we got as a whole state in total, but it went to about 3,400 different providers, so obviously not just hospitals… The grant funds, maybe cover a week to three weeks worth of operating expenses and that’s about it. You know with hospitals being really at the forefront of this pandemic, there is a real need for those funds to be able to keep the doors open.

Twenty-six states have implemented plans to let hospitals resume some elective surgeries now or in the next few weeks. Harris hopes hospital financial vitals will begin to improve. But for some it may be too late.

HARRIS: I’m optimistic and I’m choosing to remain that way that our hospitals will be able to make through this.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Sarah Schweinsberg.

NICK EICHER: Alright, now this one, we just couldn’t squeeze into the Legal Docket yesterday.

The dispute has to do with a debt arising out of a bet. The adversaries squared off over a best-of-three, winner-take-all match, half-a-million dollars on the line.

Michel Primeau versus Edmund Hooper. Primeau prevailed, leaving Hooper to have to mortgage his house.

Good thing for Hooper the Quebec Court of Appeal canceled the debt.

Under the law of the Canadian province, a bet has to meet two requirements to be valid: One, the dollar amount cannot be excessive. And two, the wager must relate to activities “requiring only skill or bodily exertion.” 

In other words, not games like rock, paper, scissors — which is what the two men were wagering over.

Oh, and if you think you could make the case that rock, paper, scissors is a game of skill, the court also found the $500,000 wager to be excessive.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER: Today is Tuesday, May 5th. 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. It’s the first Tuesday of May, and that means it’s time to welcome book reviewer Emily Whitten for our Classic Book of the Month. Thanks for joining us, Emily!

EMILY WHITTEN, REVIEWER: Glad to be here, Mary!

REICHARD: What have you been reading lately?

WHITTEN: Well, a year or so ago I picked up a compilation of Jane Austen novels…back when we could actually go to used book stores. 

REICHARD : Ah yes, I remember the good old days of leisurely browsing in brick and mortar stores.

WHITTEN: Ha. If I had to choose only one Austen book to take to a desert island, it would be Pride and Prejudice. If you haven’t read Austen before, that’s the place to start, and it’s a book you can reread many times without it losing its appeal. Besides the lovely romance, it’s just so funny!

For our classic book recommendation today, though, I thought we could step off the beaten path a little and talk about Austen’s shortest book, Persuasion. It’s actually her last finished novel before her death in 1818.

I’d like to play part of a free audio version I found on the BBC Sounds website. In this clip, we meet Captain Wentworth, the love interest. Next comes Anne, the sensible heroine, and finally, well-meaning Lady Russell who stands in their way. Let’s listen:

AUDIO: Jane Austen Persuasion Episode 2: Captain Wentworth had no fortune. But he would soon have a ship, and soon be on a station that would lead to everything he wanted. Such confidence, powerful in its own warmth, must have been enough for Anne. But Lady Russell deprecated the connection in every light. Such opposition was more than Anne could combat.” 

Mary, I enjoyed this audiobook version for a number of reasons, including the price-tag (zero dollars) and the music, which we heard at the beginning of our interview. Unfortunately, this version can be hard to find online, so I’ll link to it in the transcript at worldandeverything.org as well as in my Twitter feed today, @emilyawhitten. 

REICHARD: That’s helpful. Emily, I know that Austin’s novels are full of memorable characters. Tell us about Anne and Captain Wentworth.

WHITTEN: Sure. Anne is the second daughter of a cash poor baronet. Years before, when Anne first met Wentworth, he didn’t have much to recommend him except his good looks and fine character. In other words, he didn’t have the prestige and money to impress Anne’s father, or her mentor, Lady Russell. But as the novel opens, Wentworth comes home from a successful career at sea. He’s a captain now. He’s earned quite a bit of money. When he bumps into Anne seaside, even after all these years their romance starts to simmer again.

REICHARD: Oh, good. Sounds like the kind of story with a happy ending? 

WHITTEN: I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler to say the book follows the pattern of a traditional comedy. It ends happily but has many ups and downs before the resolution. 

Austen wrote as a Christian author. In Persuasion, as in her other books, deep, lasting happiness can’t come apart from virtue. Author Joy Clarkson talked about that use of virtue in a recent Speaking with Joy podcast. The episode is titled Jane Austen the Moral Philosopher:

AUDIO: Jane Austen the Moral Philosopher: She is all about how virtue is in large part, it’s about living well and with integrity with the life you’ve been given. How do I act with character to the people and circumstances in which I am? And the relationships and domesticity is kind of the theater for that virtue taking place.

I like the way Clarkson describes Austen’s stories as “domestic theater for virtue.” 

REICHARD: Oh, I do too!

WHITTEN: Austen writes within a very limited world of drawing rooms and balls and gardens. But somehow she manages to capture the full range of human emotions and temptations, and she shows us the impact of our moral choices.

In a lecture for BeThinking.org titled “Jane Austen—Great Christian Novelist,” Covenant Seminary professor Jerram Barrs talks about the role of redemption. 

AUDIO: Jane Austen – Great Christian Novelist: One of the other things which I think is fascinating is that in several of the books, characters have experiences of profound and permanent transformation. Experiences which read like accounts of conversion or deep repentance. This happens when they see their own blindness, their own moral failure, their own lack of self-knowledge.

Austen was the daughter of an Anglican minister. If you’d like to know more about how her writing reflects a Christian worldview, check out Karen Swallow Prior’s lovely new version of Sense and Sensibility. It’s by B&H Books. She includes a lot of great background to Austen’s work in her introduction.

REICHARD: Very good.

WHITTEN: A final note, Mary. Because Persuasion is so short, it’s not as developed as others of Austen’s stories. That means the characters feel a bit thin at times, and she ties up a lot of loose ends a little too quickly. That said, she’s very much at the top of her craft in terms of witty observations and satirical humor. So, there’s plenty to enjoy here even beyond the romance!

REICHARD: Sounds like this is a lot more than chick lit as some might expect! Thanks for this recommendation, Emily. You’ve persuaded me to give it a try!

WHITTEN: You’re very welcome, Mary. Happy reading!

REICHARD: For May, Emily recommended Persuasion by Jane Austen. She also mentioned Karen Swallow Prior’s edition of Sense and Sensibility by B&H Books. You can find a link to the audiobook version she mentioned in today’s transcript at worldandeverything.org. Just search for Classic Book of the Month.

MARY REICHARD: Next up on The World and Everything in It: an excerpt from The Olasky Interview. This week WORLD editor in chief Marvin Olasky talks with Donna Rice Hughes.

NICK EICHER: During the 1988 presidential campaign, Hughes gained unwanted notoriety. 

The media discovered and circulated photos of her sitting in the lap of presidential candidate Gary Hart, a married man, and front-runner for the Democratic nomination. 

The photo derailed his candidacy.

For Donna Rice Hughes, the story is a powerful testimony of second chances and forgiveness of sin in Christ.

DONNA RICE HUGHES: I was really thrown out to the press and without really, any cover. And what was really interesting, I had seen this man twice, but all that said, God had really been trying to get my attention prior to that. 

I always say it took an international sex scandal for God to get my attention because I was pretty stubborn. And um, so that’s just a warning. He will track you down. He will let things happen, you know, the natural consequences of our choices. But, you know, um, but he always wants to spare us that, I believe.

And so, it was like a year and a half of hell, to tell you the truth. I saw everything that I had wanted in some ways, like, uh, my own TV show, you know, and things like that. The chairman of CBS had seen me on Barbara Walters and said, “do you wanna do, um, drama, news, daytime, nighttime, whatever?” 

Another network wanted to buy my life story. And other people were trying to get me to write a book and Time magazine wanted me to be on their cover and then a lot of exploitive things. And then over here was God just saying, “come home.” And so I went, okay, you know, it’s it’s kind of now, or never. And so I started taking baby steps back to the Lord, believing and wanting the pain that I was going through, and that so many people were going through, to count for something. 

And there were no role models of women who had been in a situation like this who had made good choices, where their reputations were restored and redeemed and where God had used them in a powerful way. And the only role model I had was Chuck Colson. And so, I started, you know, my journey back to the Lord and really went underground for seven years and just disappeared.

REICHARD: That’s Donna Rice Hughes. You can hear this episode of The Olasky Interview today and learn how God used her painful past to launch her life’s work fighting the pornography industry. The Olasky Interview available wherever you get your podcasts.

NICK EICHER: Today is Tuesday, May 5th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. Our sense of smell can evoke recollections of long ago. WORLD commentator Kim Henderson says, the nose “knows.”

KIM HENDERSON, COMMENTATOR: The first time it happened I was in Memphis in a study carrel on the second floor of the Rhodes College library. Somebody walked by and I caught a whiff – light and floral, with a citrus undertone. I was half a semester deep in my freshman year and nearly drowning in homesickness, so I recognized it right away: Estee Lauder’s Beautiful. The scent of my mother.

That was more than 30 years ago, but the smell of that perfume still conjures up a host of memories for me. With Mother’s Day around the corner, I asked some friends what scents they associate with their moms. I discovered their memory triggers weren’t always the spritzable kind you buy in a bottle. 

For Renee, it’s cloves and vinegar. Her pickle-making mom was the practical type, but one summer day she walked away from her brining long enough to play chase with blue-green “monster fingers.” Renee says she never grew to like sweet pickles, but that memory of her mother’s fun side is precious to her. 

My friend, Jina, grew up in Hawaii among all sorts of exotic smells. Funny how it’s a regular old household product that can send her on a sentimental journey: Cheer, her mom’s favorite laundry detergent.  

For Carlianne, it’s the smell of homemade bread, the stuff that has filled her up and kept her mom’s special starter in the fridge for as long as she can remember. 

Marklyn used to help her mom cut other people’s yards. Now, the smell of fresh-cut grass reminds her of what her mom taught her about the importance of doing good deeds. Even on a lawnmower.

When I asked Teresa about a scent, she provided a simile. “Mom smells like a pound cake,” came the swift replay. “She makes one almost every day. The sick, dying, moving, or birthing from here to wherever have had one made with love by my mother.” 

Out in Arizona, my sister-in-law picked Celine Dion—well, her signature perfume, that is. Whenever she smells it, she can close her eyes and picture her mom on  Sunday morning, all dressed up in one of her beautiful scarves with a smile on her face, waiting to go to church.

So I found the synapse of scents runs the gamut: From Pine Sol to home perms, and lavender to Parker House rolls. The smell of fried green tomatoes, a rosemary bush, Bath and Body Works’ Coconut Lime Verbena lotion.

But there’s always someone who throws a curve, and my survey was no different.  Pam couldn’t go with just a single scent. Oh, no. It’s a smell-sound combo that’s tied to her memories. It’s opera coming from all the stereo speakers in their house while her mother did a week’s worth of cooking on Saturdays. 

Opera while pots simmer on the stovetop? Now that’s a neat memory. But whatever sensory keepsakes we have to treasure, let’s thank God for them–and our mothers–this Sunday.

I’m Kim Henderson.

NICK EICHER: Tomorrow: coronavirus shutdowns are causing serious revenue shortfalls for states. We’ll talk to a state senator from Kansas about how different political affiliations drive different approaches to the problem.

And, World Tour.

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.

Jesus said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 

I hope you’ll have a great rest of the day. 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.