The World and Everything in It: November 2, 2022

MARY REICHARD, HOST:  Good morning!

Today analysis of races to control the House, the Senate, and the governorships.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

Also today, WORLD Tour.

Plus the oldest game you’ve never heard of.

And a review of the novel Small Things Like These.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, November 2nd. 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: Time for news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: DePape arraigned » A San Francisco judge on Tuesday ordered David DePape to be held without bail.

He’s the man accused of assaulting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi after breaking into their home. Paul Pelosi is recovering from serious injuries.

And public defender Adam Lipson said the federal government has filed its own charges.

LIPSON: They placed a hold on Mr. Depape, if he’s released from custody by San Francisco, he’d be immediately taken into federal custody.

He entered a not-guilty plea on behalf of DePape, who reportedly struggled with drug use and mental illness. The 42-year-old is scheduled to return to court Friday.

Campaign events » AUDIO: Please welcome President Joe Biden 

President Biden stumped for Democrats in Florida on Tuesday. He lent support to Democratic Congresswoman Val Demings, who is challenging GOP Senator Marco Rubio.

Biden told voters that Republicans were coming after their Social Security and Medicare benefits. Republicans said the president is engaging in scare tactics.

After remarks near Miami, he headed to a fundraiser for Charlie Crist, who’s trying to unseat GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis.

BIDEN: And there’s nothing beyond our capacity if we set our mind together and work together. So God bless you all, God protect our troops, and God give some of our Republican friends some enlightenment. Thank you.

Rubio currently leads Demings by about 8 points in the polls. DeSantis leads Crist by 12 points.

Biden will make campaign stops in New Mexico and Pennsylvania later this week.

Temporary hold on Trump tax returns » Chief Justice John Roberts has temporarily blocked the handover of Donald Trump’s tax returns to House Democrats. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: Roberts’ order gives the Supreme Court time to weigh the legal issues in Trump’s emergency appeal to the high court. Without that order, the Democratic-controlled Ways and Means Committee could have had Trump’s returns in hand tomorrow.

Roberts gave the committee until Nov. 10th to respond.

Lower courts ruled that the committee has the authority to access Trump’s tax records.

If Trump can delay a final decision until the start of the next Congress in January, Republicans may then control the House and could drop the records request.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

NoKo nuke threat » North Korea made a thinly veiled nuclear threat against the United States and South Korea on Tuesday. It threatened to make Washington and Seoul—quote—“pay the most horrible price in history."

That’s in response to ongoing joint military drills between the U.S. and South Korean militaries.

Pentagon spokesman, Brigadier General Pat Ryder, said the exercises are …

RYDER: Focused on enhancing interoperability of our forces to work together to defend the Republic of Korea and our allies in the region.

He said they are defensive drills, and not a rehearsal for an invasion of North Korea, as Pyongyang claims.

This week’s exercises involve about 240 aircraft and thousands of service members.

Israel election » Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may soon be prime minister once again. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown has that story.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: Election exit polls Tuesday indicated that Netanyahu and his allies may have won the 61 seats in parliament needed to return to power after more than 3 years of political gridlock.

The polls are preliminary, and final results could change. But if the polls hold, it would be a major comeback for Netanyahu, even as he’s on trial for alleged corruption. He maintains the charges are false and politically motivated.

It was the fifth election in less than four years in Israel, and all of them turned largely on Netanyahu’s fitness to govern.

For WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

SpaceX takeoff » AUDIO:  T-minus 10, 9 … 

SpaceX launched its mega Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time in more than three years Tuesday from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.

AUDIO: … 1, zero, liftoff. 

A crowd celebrated the successful launch inside mission control.

Thick fog shrouded the space center, but did not deter the midmorning liftoff.

AUDIO: There we just heard the call-out. The vehicle is now traveling faster than the speed of sound. What a beautiful sight. 

The rocket hoisted satellites for the military.

Both side boosters peeled away two minutes after liftoff, flew back to Cape Canaveral, and landed alongside one another.

This was SpaceX’s fourth flight of a Falcon Heavy, currently the most powerful rocket in use.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: how the Midterm races are shaping up as Election Day nears.

Plus, an ancient sport in Australia.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 2nd of November, 2022.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Today is Washington Wednesday and Election Day is less than one week away.

The odds seem to favor Republicans reclaiming control of the House. But what about the Senate and governors races?

Well, here to talk about it is Kyle Kondik. He’s an elections analyst and director of communications at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

REICHARD: Kyle, good morning!

KYLE KONDIK, GUEST: Good morning!

REICHARD: The last time we spoke, the Senate race appeared to be something of a coin flip. Now, we’ve seen some momentum for Republicans in recent weeks.

We’ll talk about some individual races in a moment, but just in a general sense, Kyle, what are your thoughts on where the Senate battle stands now?

KONDIK: I still think it’s overall pretty close and competitive. You'll also have a little wildcard which of course we dealt with in depth in 2020 and 2021, which is Georgia. There's only one Georgia Senate race this time, but it's the one race of the competitive ones that still could very well end up going to run off. And so as you try to kind of figure out the math in your head as to what we might expect in terms of net change, you might almost need to set Georgia to the side just in that we very well may not have a winner there until December. The runoff now will be December 6, as opposed to early January, which was the case last time, but based on a legal change there runoffs would be in December. But overall, I do feel like the environment has kind of reinvigorated for Republicans over the past several weeks. Things have just seemed to be moving in their direction. And so, you know, I think you probably rather be the Republicans than Democrats in the race for the Senate. But I think it's also fair to just categorize the overall race for control still as a toss up.

REICHARD: Pennsylvania appears to be a dead heat. I count 25 polls on that race dating back to June. And all but one gave Democrat John Fetterman the lead.

However, that one poll that gives Republican Mehmet Oz a 3-point lead … is the most recent poll. That came after the candidates debated each other last week. So what’s going on there?

KONDIK: Yeah, I don’t know if you’d expect the debate to have some sort of huge impact. You almost never would with candidate debates and Senate races, but I will say the overall trajectory has probably been better for Oz there although Fetterman has almost always had a lead. And so I think it's probably fair to say that the race remains extremely close. But if the debate maybe even helped Oz a little bit, well a little bit would be enough maybe to tip the race. One thing that Fetterman has going in his favor is that it does appear like Democrat Josh Shapiro has a pretty decent lead in the governor's race and so maybe Shapiro provides some coattails to help Fetterman get over the finish line.

REICHARD: You know, we don’t hear as much about the Senate race out of Nevada. That one’s also really close. Who are the contenders there, and what are your thoughts on that race?

KONDIK: Yeah, Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, first term incumbent and then Adam Laxalt, who is the former State Attorney General out there. He lost the governor's race in 2018. Nevada, another really close competitive state. We do sometimes get some clues from early voting out there. Most places, early voting doesn't necessarily tell us much about what might happen. But in Nevada, there's a decent track record of that. It sort of seems like it's decent for Democrats, but maybe not as good as it was in 2020 and 2018. And, of course, Democrats want out there and ‘18 and ‘20, but not by some sort of huge margin and so just a little bit of erosion for Democrats could be enough to flip that states are Republicans. And so I think as you're looking at the data now, you’d probably rather be the Republicans but again, it's very tight. We're not getting like a super clear signal that Nevada is necessarily breaking one way or the other.

REICHARD: Okay, we’ll set Georgia aside as you mentioned, we’ll be focusing on that race tomorrow. So let’s talk about two races where challengers thought they had a better chance than it now appears they have.

In Arizona, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly is the incumbent. He appears to be in control. And in Florida, it looks like GOP Sen. Marco Rubio is walking away with that race. Why did the challengers feel good about their chances in Arizona and Florida, and what happened — acknowledging it isn’t over until it’s over.

KONDIK: Well, look, I think the Arizona race is another one—and I sound like a broken record—but the Arizona race is another one that should be fairly tight. I mean, Democrats have won the last two Senate races out in Arizona but only by about two and a half points apiece in ‘18 and ‘20. And ‘22 seems like a more challenging environment for Democrats. Although Mark Kelly is the incumbent now. He was not the incumbent when he won in 2020. I do still think Kelly has a small lead out in Arizona. One little development out there is that the Libertarian candidate dropped out, although his name is still gonna appear on the ballot, but maybe that helps Blake Masters, the Republican candidate on the margins. So it seems like Masters has been getting closer, although I always kind of expected him to get closer. It's just a question of whether we can get over the finish line. At this point I'd say it would be a mild surprise of Masters won. So I still look at Kelly as a small favorite in Arizona. Florida, that state is just trending toward the Republicans and it's a Republican leaning year. Seems like Ron DeSantis is doing really well in the gubernatorial race. And even though the Democrats have fielded a strong challenger for Senate in Val Demings, a House member from the Orlando area who's raised a lot of money, it just doesn't seem like the right year for Democrats in Florida, which is a pretty common thing to say in recent years, but particularly this year.

REICHARD: Kyle, anything that’s surprised you at this point?

KONDIK: You know, I think that I guess what’s surprising is that the Democrats are hanging in as well as they are, because the environment is just bad. It's a midterm with an unpopular Democrat in the White House. Biden's approval rating is low, really across the battlefield. And it may be that at the end of the day, Republicans actually don't just get to 51, but they maybe get to 52 or 53 Senate seats in part because Biden's approval is so poor that it's just impossible for even the strong Democratic incumbents facing not great Republican challengers, it may just be too much of a hurdle for them to get over in the Senate races. But the Democrats have done a decent job of defying gravity, but that may not last through the election.

REICHARD: Well I know the University of Virginia where you work has given Republicans the advantage when it comes to reclaiming control of the House. Prognosticating is what you do. How do you think the numbers will fall when it’s all said and done?

KONDIK: I’m thinking, at this point, high-teens, low-twenties for Republican gains in the House. If I had to guess—we'll do a final projection the day before the election—my guess is that that number is likely to go more on the higher end of that as opposed to the lower end. Often when it feels like the environment is in favor of one party as I think it is in favor of Republicans at this point, you sort of pick up on more of that the sooner you get to the election. But there are still a few days to go here and a few more things to try to figure out. But yeah, I think the Republicans look pretty good in the House.

REICHARD: Final question here, Kyle, and this is about state-level politics. What is the balance of power right now with governorships? And how’s that going to look like on November 9th?

KONDIK: There are 50 state governorships. Republicans have 28. Democrats have 22. A slight majority of Americans live in states with Democratic governors. So it's kind of a pretty close balance there, even though Republicans have more governorships than Democrats do. The Democrats are very likely to pick up open seats in Maryland and Massachusetts. However, there are a bunch of toss-up races in places like Oregon, Nevada, Wisconsin, Kansas, where the Republicans have decent chances to win. And so it may be that even though Democrats are probably going to pick up Maryland and Massachusetts, Republicans might be able to make up for that and maybe even get a net gain themselves depending on how well they do in the rest of the playing field.

REICHARD: Kyle Kondik is with the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Kyle, thanks so much!

KONDIK: Thank you!

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

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Somalia twin bombings— Today’s World Tour starts in Somalia, where people are still reeling from a weekend terror attack killed at least 120 people.

NATS: [Rubble clearing]

Two cars loaded with explosives went off minutes apart near a busy intersection in the capital of Mogadishu.

Insurgents then fired guns at the education ministry. Nearly 300 people were injured. The attack is the deadliest since a truck bomb went off at the same intersection five years ago.

Mohamed Jama was among the injured.

JAMA: [Speaking Somali]

He says here he lost consciousness before waking up to see smoke and fire. Somalis are donating blood as rescuers continue to search for missing people.

The al-Qaeda-linked extremist group al-Shabaab claimed responsibility. The group has stepped up attacks since a government crackdown began in August.

Philippines Storm Nalgae— We head over to the Philippines, where communities are trying to recover from the aftermath of a deadly storm.

NATS: [Rescuers working]

Rescue workers used long timbers to wade through thick mud as they searched for bodies.

More than 100 people have died since Tropical Storm Nalgae battered the Philippines. More than half of the victims are from the southern island of Mindanao where landslides inundated villages.

Survivors this week began shoveling mud out of their homes and stores.

The state weather forecaster warned that another tropical storm was heading towards the Philippines as Nalgae moved on across the South China Sea.

Lebanon vacuum— Next, to Lebanon.

AUDIO: [Supporters, cheers]

Lebanese President Michel Aoun vacated the presidential palace to the cheers and music of supporters.

Aoun formally ended his six-year tenure on Monday without a successor.

Parliament has held four sessions since late September to elect a president, but no candidate could score the required two-thirds majority vote.

A caretaker government now leads the country. Aoun warned of weeks of constitutional chaos ahead.

Opponents blame Aoun for the country’s economic crisis rooted in decades of mismanagement and corruption.

Niger schools — We wrap up today back in Africa.

NATS: [Teacher speaking to students]

Dozens of children sit attentively at wooden desks inside a classroom in southwestern Niger. They lift up little blackboards to show their answers written in chalk to the teacher.

The cluster school in the town of Ouallam has allowed hundreds of children displaced by violence to return to classrooms. Adamou Dari is the director of the Ouallam Cluster school.

DARI: [Speaking French]

He says here the students also receive psychosocial support. Jihadist violence has closed nearly 900 schools across Niger.

NATS: [Children playing]

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: You know it’s going to be a bad day when you check the pen of the snake you’ve nicknamed “Houdini” and discover he’s lived up to his name.

Houdini, the King of Handcuffs.

He’s out, he’s gone, he’s slipped the cuffs.

That’s news from the Skansen Aquarium in Stockholm, Sweden.

So the hunt for Houdini was on. Using x-ray the search team found him hiding in the insulation between two walls.

And of course they drilled holes, only to discover he’s slipped away again.

And it’s always the last place you look: Houdini slithered back to his enclosure.

Now this 7-foot King Cobra may not be the “King of Handcuffs” like his namesake, but it looks like he just might be “the King of Hide and Seek.”

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 2nd. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: A sport straight out of the pages of history.

It’s called fistball. It’s been around since 240 BC and yes, there are fistball leagues and professional teams and international competitions.

REICHARD: It’s big in Europe. Not so much in Australia. In fact, no one there had played it professionally until two friends decided they would be the first. Here’s WORLD correspondent Amy Lewis with their story.

AUDIO: [Australia sets Olympic record in 4x100 relay]

AMY LEWIS, REPORTER: The story goes that in 2012, two Aussie guys got it in their heads that they wanted to go to the Olympics. One of them was Malcolm Donnellon.

DONNELLON: And we were talking, you know, about how great it would be to play for Australia, you know, to represent your country. But you know, most of us realize, at some point, that you’re probably not going to be able to do that, because only the, you know, top few percent of people get the opportunity to do that.

Donnellon loved playing sports more than training for them. His mate Rolf Peterson was the same. But that didn’t stop him from trying to pursue his dream.

DONNELLON: And Rolf was like, well, actually, I’ve got a bit of an idea about that. I think I found a loophole.

Peterson found an obscure sport.

DONNELLON: It’s big in Germany and Austria and Switzerland and some parts of South America. It’s called fistball…

Fistball is an old sport. The first guy to mention it was Roman Emperor Gordian the Third—240 years before Christ. The Italians finally wrote down the rules in 1555.

AUDIO: [Japan/NZ Game]

One South African fistballer described it as volleyball on steroids. From the front of a court, one team member serves a stiff leather ball over a skinny 2-inch wide red and white striped net. The other team gets three hits to return the ball. But the ball can bounce once between each hit.

Regardless of who serves, every error gets a point—like if a player or ball hits the net or a team doesn’t get the ball back to the other side. It’s played on a court six times bigger than a volleyball court.

Oh, and players can only use one fist to hit the ball.

AUDIO: [Hitting the ball, cheers]

The game sounded fun enough. Then Malcolm Donnellon’s friend told him there were tournaments all over the world.

DONNELLON: And as far as we can see, no one in Australia has ever played it before. So I think if we started it ourselves, we could be the Australian team.

They needed five on each team. So they invited a bunch of their friends to join them.

DONNELLON: …And so, all right, well, cool. Let’s try and get this together and actually have a try at this game and see if it’s any good because, like, maybe it’s just a really bad game. And there’s a good reason why it’s not played in many countries.

They used a volleyball as a fistball and a rope strung between some tent poles for a net. They made a YouTube video…and a professional fistballer from Switzerland saw it.

Roger Willen is now the Development Director for new fistball teams. He was appalled at what he saw.

WILLEN: They are just hitting the ball a little bit. And fistball is quite different. So I sent them also some links to better videos about fistball.

And he mailed them a huge box of official fistball equipment.

It turns out, Donnellon’s mate Rolf Peterson was right. Being the first team of an obscure sport opened doors to represent their country. Just a year after organizing, the newly formed Australian fistball team flew to Pakistan to play in the Men’s Asian Fistball Championships. Fistball is recognized by the International Olympic Committee and is part of the World Games.

DONNELON: …which is sort of the poor man's Olympics. And we’re sort of still continuing to try and build towards potentially being in the Olympics one day, but I think it’s probably still a little way off yet.

In the meantime, on October 22nd and 23rd, they hosted the Pacific Fistball Championships with Japan and New Zealand after years of pandemic disruptions.

The week leading up to the championships, they got sunny spring weather. But then, starting at 8:34 Friday night…

AUDIO: [Rain, thunder]

…a massive thunderstorm dumped 46 millimeters of rain—or 2 inches—on the baseball outfield where they set up their courts. Teams from the neighboring island nations of New Zealand and Japan had already arrived in-country, ready to challenge the Australian teams. If they got to play.

The morning of the championship, the Australians tested their teamwork on the courts in new ways.

AUDIO: [Tractor receding]

One team member drove over the soggy grass with an in-field groomer loaded with sandbags. He tried to coax the deep puddles to the outer edges of the courts.

Barefoot team members labored shoulder to shoulder squeegeeing water from the outfield with push-brooms.

AUDIO: [Squeegeeing]

The games started two hours late.

AUDIO: [Tractor turning off]

The balls actually bounced now instead of falling flat in puddles.

AUDIO: [Sideline cheering and from children]

The mud didn’t deter anyone. Fistballers love the sport. Here’s Waichiro from Japan:

WAICHIRO: I want many people to love fistball.

Jesse Kempf from New Zealand echoes the sentiment.

JESSE KEMPF: I don't think people, many people know the game and watching it. It's quite a dynamic, exciting game.

Dhara Modhwadia used to play volleyball and now plays fistball for Australia.

DHARA MODHWADIA: I wish people just knew more about it. Because when I joined I did not know anything about it. And it’s, it's a fun sport.

Roger Willen from Switzerland wants people to know…

WILLEN: It’s a very, very fun game. And you can play it from seven to 77. And you can play it indoor, you can play it outdoor, you can play it everywhere. You need just the ball and some people. That's all. It’s a very easy game and very fun game.

AUDIO: That’ll do it. New Zealand are the champions to the Master’s Pacific Fistball Championships. Congratulations.

In the end, Australia and Japan fell to the Kiwis. New Zealand’s men’s, women’s, and masters’ teams took the Championship trophies back across the Tasman Sea.

Donnellon says his teams are already planning strategies to get the trophies back. Fist on!

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Amy Lewis in Geelong, Australia.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 2nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Next up: a review of a novel by Irish author Claire Keegan. The book came out last year and it made the short list for the prestigious Booker Prize. The title: Small Things Like These. Here’s WORLD senior correspondent Katie Gaultney.

AUDIOBOOK: He found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another… without once being brave enough to go against what was there yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?

KATIE GAULTNEY, REPORTER: That’s an audiobook clip from Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These. Set in a quaint Irish village at Christmastime, 1985, Keegan’s 70-page novel presents working class life through the eyes of husband and father, Bill Furlong.

At home, he marvels at the blackness of his five daughters’ hair and his sleeping wife’s bare shoulder. He fills the hot water bottles at bedtime and tends the fire to warm their cottage…

AUDIOBOOK: When he threw what dust and dirt and holly leaves and bits of pine he’d gathered off the floor into the Rayburn, it spat and let out an almighty crack…

… And Furlong dutifully carries on a coal delivery business that has him crossing paths with the townsfolk. Those interactions often prompt him to consider his own impoverished childhood.

AUDIOBOOK: Something caught in his throat, as though there might never again be another night like this. What, now, was touching him on this Sunday evening? Again, he found himself thinking back.

He was the son of a devoted—but unwed—mother. Her sudden death when Furlong was 12 impacted him deeply. Moments from his present often bring to mind his past.

AUDIOBOOK: The scent of the lemon which took him back to his mother at Christmastime in that fine, old kitchen; how she used to put what was left of the lemon into one of the blue jugs with sugar...

The book overflows with narrative tension, as Furlong wrestles between a desire to provide for his family while questioning if he has truly made anything of himself. Wanting to be the present father he never had but daring—just barely—to consider whether a more fulfilling life eludes him.

While delivering coal to a Catholic “training school” led by nuns, Furlong makes a discovery that haunts him. Enter another tension: The faithfulness of genuine Christians versus the hypocrisy of those who would call themselves believers but show inhumanity toward the vulnerable. The convent’s Mother Superior wields great influence in the village, and Furlong’s wife, Eileen, pleads with him to look the other way.

AUDIOBOOK: “All thinking does is bring you down.” She was touching the little pearly buttons on her nightdress, agitated. “If you want to get on in life, there’s things you have to ignore, so you can keep on.”

As Furlong wrestles with his conscience, readers will sense their own tug-of-war—relaxing into the coziness of a snow-crested Irish village and heartbroken by the horrors waged there. A single line containing an obscenity mars an otherwise clean book—but the author makes it clear it’s a bad word through its usage. Keegan slyly leads her readers to consider enormous questions—without ever coming across as didactic. The book’s pacing, crisp detail, and spare beauty make up an expertly crafted story whose themes will stay with readers long after they turn the final page.

I’m Katie Gaultney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: reaction to election results in Brazil after a narrow win for left-leaning “Lula” da Silva in the run-off presidential election.

And, more on the Senate race in Georgia.

Plus, bringing an American tree back from extinction. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

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

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

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

The Bible says: The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. (Psalm 19:7-8 ESV)

Go now in grace and peace.

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