The World and Everything in It - November 18, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Thanks in part to COVID, homeschooling is on the rise—especially among black families.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Also analysis of the Rittenhouse trial now in the hands of the jury.

Plus a story about a small town with a big problem.

And commentator Cal Thomas on the government’s waste of your tax money.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday November 18th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BROWN: And I’m Myrna Brown. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now here’s Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: OSHA suspends enforcement of vaccine mandate for private employers » The Biden administration is backing away from its planned COVID-19 vaccine mandate for many private businesses, at least for now.

OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is the government agency that would enforce that mandate. In a statement Wednesday, it said it’s abiding by a court order “that OSHA take no steps to implement or enforce” the vaccine requirements “until further court order.”

That after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a stay on the mandate.

OSHA had given companies with more than 100 workers until Jan. 4th to require their indoor workers to be vaccinated or get tested weekly. It said violators could face fines of up to $14,000 per offense.

Iran-backed hackers accused of targeting critical U.S. sectors » Hackers linked to the Iranian government have been targeting a “broad range of victims” inside the United States with ransomware and other attacks. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: American, British and Australian officials issued an advisory on Wednesday. It said that in recent months, Iran has exploited computer vulnerabilities exposed by hackers before they can be fixed. The attacks targeted entities in the transportation, health care and public health sectors.

According to the advisory, the attackers then leveraged the initial hack for additional operations, such as data exfiltration, ransomware and extortion.

Officials say the hackers have used the same Microsoft Exchange vulnerability in Australia.

Microsoft announced Tuesday that it had seen six different groups in Iran deploying ransomware since last year.

The warning is notable because even though ransomware attacks remain prevalent, most of the significant ones in the past year were linked to Russia-based groups rather than Iranian hackers.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

UN atomic watchdog: Iran further raising nuclear stockpile » Iran continues to ramp up its nuclear program. The United Nations' atomic watchdog says it believes that Iran has further increased its stockpile of highly enriched uranium in breach of its 2015 accord with world powers.

The International Atomic Energy Agency warned member nations in its confidential quarterly report Wednesday. It said Iran has an estimated stock of 39 pounds of highly enriched uranium, which can be easily refined to make atomic weapons.

But the IAEA is unable to verify Iran’s exact stockpile of enriched uranium as Iran is no longer cooperating with inspectors.

U.S. overdose deaths top 100,000 in one year » For the first time ever, estimated drug overdose deaths topped 100,000 in the United States in a 12-month period.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Wednesday…

BECERRA: I think it’s time we just recognize that we’ve been struggling in trying to deal with this epidemic. And since COVID-19 hit it’s gotten worse.

The CDC estimated on Wednesday that 100,300 people died of a drug overdose between May 2020 and April 2021. That’s an increase of nearly 30 percent from the same period one year earlier.

The death toll rose in all but four states. And Kentucky, Vermont, and West Virginia, reported increases of more than 50 percent.

Opioids accounted for 75 percent of overdose deaths. The drug supply has become more dangerous because suppliers lace methamphetamines and cocaine with fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid.

Sec. Austin calls out Russia for endangering space station » Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called out Russia on Wednesday for endangering the International Space Station.

A Russian weapons test sent more than 1,500 pieces of debris flying through space. Russia insists the debris is not a threat to the space station. Secretary Austin disagreed.

AUSTIN: It’s a safety concern, and so we would call on Russia to act more responsibly going forward.

U.S. officials on Monday said Russia destroyed an old satellite with a missile in what they called a reckless and irresponsible strike.

According to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, astronauts now face four times greater risk than normal from space junk.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: homeschooling’s growing appeal among black families.

Plus, the hidden costs of the new infrastructure spending bill.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday, the 18th of November, 2021.

You’re listening to today’s edition of The World and Everything in It and we’re so glad to have you along with us. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. First up: home education.

As COVID-19 sent many students home in 2020, more and more families turned to homeschooling. But the jump was even more noticeable among African American families.

According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of black families educating children at home grew fivefold in just six months. In April 2020, just over 3 percent of black families homeschooled their children. A year and a half later, 16 percent.

REICHARD: Homeschooling statistics for this school year aren’t yet available, but some experts and homeschoolers think the trend could continue. WORLD correspondent Lauren Dunn reports.

LAUREN DUNN, REPORTER: Jasper and Deah Abbott’s son attended a public pre-k during the 2019-2020 school year. When schools went virtual in March 2020, Abbott said it was “kind of chaotic.” She and her husband prayed about what to do for their son’s kindergarten year.

ABBOTT: My mom is a public high school teacher. Her mom had been a public kindergarten teacher. My sister is a public school teacher, my brother in law's a public school teacher…public school was in my blood. And I had a really great experience in public school. So it was not at all anything I ever would have considered before the pandemic.

But the Abbotts’ concerns about COVID-19 and virtual instruction convinced them to give homeschooling a try. They pulled their son out of public school in fall 2020, the weekend before he would have started kindergarten.

ABBOTT: I'm white, my husband is black. And so our son is mixed, but he also identifies as black.

Abbott had already planned to supplement her son’s education around his heritage if he went to public school. But with homeschooling, she found even more opportunities.

ABBOTT: I love imbuing heritage into what we're doing… He knows a little bit about every country in Africa, and he doesn't really know about Europe yet. And I love that that's an option because that's not necessarily the way a school system is normally set up.

Steven Duvall is the director of research at the Home School Legal Defense Association. He said that in previous years African American families homeschooled at about half the rate of white families. But more recent surveys show the black homeschooling rate is only a couple of percentage points behind that of white families.

That shift began even before 2020. According to a 2015 report by Brian Ray at the National Home Education Research Institute, the number of black homeschooling families “nearly doubled from 1999 to 2012.”

Khadijah Ali-Coleman was one of those families. She homeschooled her daughter off and on until her daughter graduated this past May. Ali-Coleman is also the co-founder of Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars. It’s a research group that provides virtual training for parents.

ALI-COLEMAN: But I will tell you anecdotally, that for many families, particularly those who were homeschooling before COVID-19, a number one reason why many families were pulling their children out of schools was because the lack of teaching about not only black history, but teaching history in a way that centers the experiences or even includes the experiences of people who are non white, in a way where they are contributors to the society, and where their existence doesn't begin with slavery and enslavement.

Emily Powell is a representative for National Black Home Educators. She told me new families are homeschooling for various reasons. Some chose to homeschool due to COVID-19 restrictions or virtual learning situations. Others are concerned about schools teaching critical race theory.

Homeschool mom Amber O’Neal Johnston said she has seen more black families involved since she started homeschooling about seven years ago. But the growth has really exploded in the past two years. In 2016, Johnston started Heritage Homeschoolers, a group for African American homeschoolers in the Atlanta area.

Before starting Heritage Homeschoolers, Johnston and her husband participated in another homeschool group. They enjoyed it, despite being the only black family. But their daughter began to say negative things about her own skin and hair and stopped playing with her black dolls.

JOHNSTON: I was very confused, because it's not like anyone had been mean to her or that they weren't including her in things. And I just didn't understand where it was coming from.

The Johnstons never left their first homeschooling group, but they decided to look for other black homeschooling families. Soon Heritage Homeschoolers was born, and it kept growing. It now serves 280 children from 94 families.

JOHNSTON: So it wasn't just my daughter who had this need. And since then I found that many of the black families in our community or families with black children in our community, also were experiencing similar problems and had a similar need.

When Deah Abbott began researching her homeschooling options, she found out about Heritage Homeschoolers.

ABBOTT: I had found Amber's site. And then I was like, Oh, wow, she is here. And there's a homeschool group for melanated kids. And so we hopped into that, right as we were hopping into homeschooling, and it's been really, really beautiful fit for us.

Abbott said that it is possible her son might return to public school at some point. But right now she can’t imagine not homeschooling. On a recent trip to Oklahoma, the family combined their travel with learning opportunities.

ABBOTT: And we saw prairie dogs. And we went to the top of Mount Scott. And we were looking at bison, and we were doing all this stuff. And my dad was with us. And at the end of the day, he was like, it felt really leisurely. We didn't feel rushed. I don't know how we did, everything we did, we did so much. We saw so much. And I told him, that is how homeschooling feels to me just about every day.

Amber O’Neal Johnston believes the uptick in homeschooling will continue, especially now that there are more support groups and options for single or working parents.

JOHNSTON: Parents have had an opportunity to see their children just flourish at home. So when everyone was forced to bring the kids home, black families in large numbers, saw how beautiful it was, and what it could look like, what life could be like. And also how happy the children were to be home with their parents.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lauren Dunn.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse.

Jurors in Kenosha deliberated for a second straight day on Wednesday preparing to decide his fate.

The now 18-year-old Rittenhouse showed up in the streets of Kenosha last August carrying a semi-automatic rifle amid ongoing protests and riots over a police shooting of a black man. Rittenhouse said he drove to Kenosha from his home 30 minutes away in Illinois to protect area businesses from looters.

BROWN: During an altercation with several men, he fatally shot two and wounded a third. He claims it was self-defense.

Rittenhouse faces five felony charges. The most serious is first-degree intentional homicide. If convicted of that charge, he faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

REICHARD: Joining us now to talk about it is Steve Meacham. He is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Cedarville University in Ohio. He served for more than 30 years with the New York State Police as a trooper and later as a Senior Investigator with the state’s Bureau of Investigation. Professor, good morning!

STEVE MEACHAM, GUEST: Good morning.

REICHARD: Well, with your background as an investigator, let me start with a question about process. If you were an investigator in Wisconsin and were called upon to lead the investigation into this incident, what sort of things would you be looking for?

STEVE MEACHAM, GUEST: Good morning.

REICHARD: Well, with your background as an investigator, let me start with a question about process. If you were an investigator in Wisconsin and were called upon to lead the investigation into this incident, what sort of things would you be looking for?

MEACHAM: Well, in this particular case, you have various crime scenes. And so it'd be really crucial and important to ensure that you actually secure each crime scene and begin to process what criminal evidence, what evidence would actually be helpful to determine what actually took place. And so that would be crucial. You need a lot of people to do that, given the chaos that was taking place in Kenosha at that time to be able to secure each of those scenes. So that would be the first step in the investigation. And then you'd begin to actually interview people, talk to witnesses, find out who saw what. Obviously, you'd want to try to find who it was that had actually shot the weapon, to actually find out who the perpetrator was in this particular act and track them down for sure. So lots of things to do from a physical evidence standpoint, but also from interviews and getting the proper information. It's all about collecting information, finding out the truth as far as what took place.

REICHARD: Does the fact that this was such a public case make the job of investigators much tougher?

MEACHAM: It can, for sure it can. But on the other hand, when it comes to any criminal investigation, it's all about determining what the facts are and finding out the truth without being impacted by the politics or public perception or what the media is doing or what the media is saying.

REICHARD: Okay, now the trying of this case is, of course, dependent on state law. And I’ll ask about the defense in a moment, but what did the prosecution have to prove here in order to get a felony conviction against Rittenhouse?

MEACHAM: Well, the prosecution had to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Kyle Rittenhouse had actually committed murder. Intentional murder is what the top charge is here. Clearly, we have two people that died, in this case. But you have to understand that there's a difference between murder—the unlawfully killing of someone—and what is homicide. Homicide is by definition when somebody takes the life of another person. We clearly have two cases of homicide, but homicide can be justified. And if it's justified, then it's not unlawful. And so I think that's the key here. The prosecution actually had to prove that the killings took place in an unlawful, unjustified manner, that it was intentional murder.

REICHARD: Alright, now the judge in this case explained state law with regard to self-defense. He said a person may use deadly force only if he reasonably believed the force used was necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to his own person.

Is that the sum total of what Rittenhouse’s lawyer had to prove—that he feared for his life? Or was there more to it?

MEACHAM: Well, that is a necessary element to show that this was a case of self-defense. The defense attorney for Kyle Rittenhouse had to explain that Rittenhouse was actually under attack in each of these cases, that his life was in danger, or that he was possibly being subjected to a very serious physical injury and he felt the need to justify his actions by using deadly physical force in a way to stop that threat.

REICHARD: The prosecution’s trial strategy changed as the trial progressed, didn’t it? Why and how? 

MEACHAM: Well, I think that the prosecution was facing an uphill battle and began to introduce certain things that seemed to be not really relevant to the case. And, you know, one of the issues was the fact that Kyle Rittenhouse was armed with this AR-15. But in fact, Kyle Rittenhouse had a legal right to actually possess a weapon. And, in fact, the judge threw out the cou nt as far as the unlawful possession of a weapon charge. And so it tried to introduce that as well as other things, perhaps to show that Rittenhouse was there for purposes that, in the words of the prosecutor, I think, he indicated that he was there to kill. He had said to the jury in the courtroom, that there was only two people that were killed that night and they're both killed by Kyle Rittenhouse, without really providing the context and the understanding of the fact that Rittenhouse has actually pursued, chased down before he shot Mr. Rosenbaum. And then in the same thing with the shooting that took place a short time thereafter. He again was attacked and knocked to the ground and hit with a skateboard and stomped on and then another person pointed a pistol at him. Those are indications that there is probably a good argument for self defense in those particular circumstances.

REICHARD: The judge criticized media coverage of the trial on Wednesday. And he said he would reconsider allowing televised trials in the future. What role might the media coverage and the judge’s comments play in the future of this case?

MEACHAM: Well, yeah, it's difficult to say. One of the things you want to do is try to protect the jury from any outside interference. And so if there's anything that's going to transpire with the media and cameras and such that may be impacting the jury, the judge will probably disallow that. And so in order for our system, our criminal justice system to work effectively here in our country, we got to make sure that we have an impartial jury that is not swayed by other things outside of what the facts are of every individual case, without being swayed by public opinion, or media, or anything like that.

REICHARD: Professor Steve Meacham with Cedarville University has been our guest. Professor, thanks so much!

MEACHAM: You're welcome.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, November 18th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: A story of abuse and recovery. And here we’ll pause for a moment in case you have young ones around. This story is one you may want to hit pause and come back to later. It deals with disturbing events.

Twenty years have passed since allegations against a popular minister rocked a rural Southern community to its core.

But the headlines from that case seem hauntingly familiar today—abuse covered up and denied for decades. Victims left wounded in its wake.

BROWN: WORLD Senior Correspondent Kim Henderson comes now to introduce: Truth Be Told, a special podcast series in four parts available for download beginning this Saturday.

NATE: We lived seven or eight minutes from, from the church and their house. There was a phone call to our house stating that they seen individuals and heard threats of them coming toward our place to potentially kill us all.

KIM HENDERSON, REPORTER: It’s the last week of February 2001. Dark has fallen, and even though daffodils have decided it’s time to bloom, winter’s cold still lingers.

Maybe that’s why Nathaniel Lamb is shivering. Or maybe it’s something else.

He’s barely 14, an eighth-grader with sandy hair, wire-rim glasses, and size 13 sneakers. Unlike other kids his age, Nathaniel has never seen Jurassic Park or any of the Star Wars thrillers, but right now a real drama is unfolding, and he’s at the center of it . . . Nathaniel Lamb is living moments he’ll have on instant recall for the rest of his life.

NATE: Dad, Mom—got us all into a room, the furthest room that had the most walls that would protect us. And we feared that bullets would come through the wall and that we would not make it out alive that night.

The Lambs live in Jayess, Mississippi, a sparse community built around railroad tracks laid to transport timber a hundred years ago. Their frame house sits close to the road on 16th section land. An open pasture stands between the back door and woods Nathaniel likes to explore. The closest house is a half a mile away.

NATE: I remember (pause with emotion) my dad gathering us around in a circle in that living room that night crying out for help to our God. We turned off all the lights, locked all the doors. We didn't want no evidence that we were in the house. . .

Just 48 hours earlier, Nathaniel sat in the same living room. It was then his mom had pressed him to tell the truth. She wouldn’t let up. Nathaniel’s dad, a hard-working, 12-hours-a-day diesel mechanic was there, too. But nothing could have prepared the Lambs for what their only son told them.

Now, with their whole world turned upside down, the family of six is huddled on the floor, close to the piano

NATE: I kinda creeped to the side away from the circle by myself. I remember kneeling down, wondering, “what's going to happen next?” And I just simply closed my eyes with my knees bent to the ground and my face on the carpet on the floor and said, “God, will you help me?” And it was in that moment (voice cracks)— it was just a small nudge of hope and peace that God was going to help me through this, and God was going to keep us safe.

This story is about a shocking criminal case.

THORNHILL: We walked down into the woods about a hundred yards from their house. And Nathan said, “David Earl King had gave me this to use.”

One that involves religion...

GOODWIN: You know, you don’t mess with the preacher... people hate to believe that a man of God would do such a thing.

...power...

LEAH: I will refer to him as King. I won’t ever say his whole name .

...money...

CLERK: I started reading it and reviewing the court records, and I couldn’t put it down. I read the whole thing.

...violence...

NATE: I'm not only keeping a secret from my family, but I'm dealing with the guilt of what happened.

...and abuse.

SCHMUTZER: This is not stranger danger. That was common when I was a kid. That mantra is baloney. Most perpetrators are people the victim knows, because that's how they have access to them.

More than three decades of abuse. That’s what the Associated Press reported on March 10, 2001, the day a circuit court judge denied bail for the accused abuser, David Earl King. It began a process that could put him away for the rest of his life.

DARLENE: And they was so worried that I was going to back out, you know, that I was going to kind of get under stress and just drop it. And I looked at Bill Goodwin and I said, “I ain’t doing it. We are going to go through this.”

I’m Kim Henderson. A few years ago I met Susie Harvill while working on a different crime story. One about human trafficking.

HARVILL: A lot of people, it’s ugly and they don’t want to get involved. We’re churchy people, and we absolutely don’t talk about things like this.

In January 2021, she introduced me to Nathaniel Lamb, the victim at the center of this case. Later, he made a four-hour drive to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to give me an interview. There, Harvill welcomed Nathaniel, who’s now 34 and prefers to go by “Nate.”

AUDIO: [SOUND OF NATE ENTERING BUILDING]

For months after that meeting, I couldn’t shake Nate’s story. I poured over news archives. I tracked down the prosecutor. Interviewed an abuse expert. Opened dusty court records. And with each new layer I peeled back, I wondered, “How could this happen?”

REICHARD: That’s what we’re going to find out together. Truth be Told is the latest WORLD Radio Special Report podcast series. Over the next four weekends, we’re going to release the serial on The World and Everything in It podcast feed—it’s also available on our website: wng.org/truthbetold

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, November 18th. Good morning to you! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Here’s commentator Cal Thomas on the ways our government wastes our tax dollars.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: Remember those “shovel ready jobs” promised by the Obama-Biden Administration in 2011? When many failed to appear after passage of a previous spending boondoggle, Obama joked “Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected.”

Citizens Against Government Waste noted that law cost $787 billion dollars. Of that, $48 billion was supposed to go for infrastructure. It was disingenuously called the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein calculated that each job created would cost taxpayers $200,000. When asked about that statistic during an interview with ABC News, then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner did not dispute it. But, he said, “the price tag is the wrong way to measure the bill’s worth.” We’re hearing similar assertions about the new infrastructure spending bill signed by President Biden on Monday.

Welcome to “shovel-ready 2.0” It’s another swindle that has just been perpetrated on us in the name of “infrastructure.” Swindle means “to obtain by fraud or deceit.” The administration and congressional Democrats claim it will cost nothing. That’s because they’re relying on accounting gimmicks and money they hope will come in through tax increases. But that will surely cost someone something.

The new law is 2,700 pages long. I would bet my house payment that no member of Congress read it all before voting. But The Heritage Foundation dug into the details and found items that add to the debt, will probably increase already high inflation, and will likely further boost the cost of essential goods and services.

For starters, the Heritage team says, “it bails out the Highway Trust Fund to the tune of $118 billion. The fund suffers from chronic deficits due to overspending.” This is throwing good money after bad. But when it comes to government programs, failure is never an excuse to spend less money.

Supporters sold the law to the public with promises that airports, highways, and bridges will be repaired. But the Heritage analysts note the law “adds as much new spending to modes like mass transit and Amtrak as it does for highways, even though buses and rail account for only a tiny fraction of travel. Even the value of highway funding is hampered by wasteful set-asides: $2 million per year for bee-friendly landscaping, $50 million per year to combat weeds, and expensive mandates that give unionized contractors a leg up on taxpayer-friendly, non-union shops.” If history is a guide, one or more of these set-asides benefit the special interests of members, possibly in exchange for their votes.

It’s an old joke, but true: How do you tell when a politician is lying? When his lips are moving. Unlike those who voted for this legislation, take the time to read it yourself, along with the analysis. You will likely conclude they have swindled us again.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow on Culture Friday, John Stonestreet joins us once again.

And, a movie about a man with a dream for his daughters and the will to help them achieve it.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

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The Bible says they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary.

Go now in grace and peace.

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