The World and Everything in It: November 21, 2024

PREROLL: Division One women’s volleyball teams refuse to play against a rival school…I’m Lindsay Mast. In a moment, we’ll hear why when we meet one of the players and her lawyer. Stay with us.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

We’ll hear the background to that case in just a moment.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Also, opioid deaths are down. What’s behind that decrease?

INGRAM: I think there’s a much greater awareness in 2024 of the risks for fentanyl exposure.

And new interest in a Christian relic:

SOT: Here was a complete photographic likeness of a man whose side showed a large wound, and whose hands and feet showed the marks of one crucified.

And WORLD commentator Cal Thomas says the federal government needs to go on a diet.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, November 21st. 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: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Laken Riley murder trial conviction » A Georgia judge has convicted Venezuelan national Jose Ibarra on several charges in the death of 26-year-old nursing student Laken Riley.

HAGGARD: Count one malice murder. I find the defendant guilty. (gasps from courtroom)

It was a case that to many was a tragic symbol of a much larger problem amid a national debate over border and immigration policies.

Just before sentencing, Riley’s mother, Allyson Phillips, told the court …

PHILLIPS: He showed no mercy on Laken when she was begging for her life. … [pause] … There’s no end to the pain and suffering that he inflicted on our family and our friends.

She asked the judge to give Ibarra the maximum sentence, and her request was granted. Life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Ibarra attacked and killed Riley while she was jogging on the University of Georgia campus in February.

Jose Ibarra entered the country illegally 2 years ago. Despite being arrested for a crime in New York City, he was later granted a taxpayer funded flight to Georgia several months before Riley’s death.

LA Sanctuary city » Meantime, the city of Los Angeles is one step closer to becoming a sanctuary city. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: City Council members have passed an ordinance barring all city personnel … from aiding or cooperating with federal immigration officials as they try to locate illegal immigrants.

They’re pushing to finalize the sanctuary status before President-elect Donald Trump returns to office.

Local Republican officials slammed counselors for the vote … saying the city is now closer to putting its law abiding residents at risk.

L-A Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat … is expected to approve the ordinance.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Ukraine/Russia update » The Pentagon says the Biden administration will give Ukraine antipersonnel landmines to help it slow Russia’s battlefield advances.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says Russian forces have switched up their tactics…

AUSTIN:  And they don't lead with their mechanized forces anymore. They lead with dismounted forces who are able to close and do things to kind of pave the way for mechanized forces.

Austin said that right now, Ukraine is fabricating its own landmines and that the American-made mines will be safer for Ukrainian forces and civilians.

U.S. veto UN resolution demanding Gaza ceasefire » The United States blocked a UN Security Council resolution on Wednesday that would have demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

WOMAN: 14 votes in favor...one vote against...zero abstentions. The draft resolution has not been adopted...[DUCK UNDER]

The United States cast the single no-vote vetoing the resolution.

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller says that's because the resolution did not include a demand that Hamas release the hostages the terror group is still holding.

MILLER: There are still seven American citizens who are being held hostage in Gaza, and we are not going to walk away from them.

Some criticized the U.S. government for blocking the resolution.

But Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said those who voted FOR it should be ashamed.

DANON: They betrayed their own principles. Their responsibility is to the innocent and the duty to uphold justice. The resolution brought before this chamber was not a path to peace. It was a road map to more terror, more suffering, and more bloodshed.

Hamas is believed to still be holding more than 100 hostages.

Ethics Committee Meeting, Gaetz meets w/ senators » After a closed-door vote on Wednesday, the House Ethics Committee could not decide whether to release a report on its probe of former Congressman Matt Gaetz, who is President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general.

The top Democrat on the panel, Susan Wild:

WILD:  There was no consensus on this issue. We did agree that we would reconvene as a committee on December 5th to further consider this matter.

Gaetz’s resignation from the House last week ended the investigation but the committee can still release its report if it chooses.

Republicans and Democrats on panel are split down party lines on whether to do so.

Gaetz has been accused of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. He denies any wrongdoing.

Bomb cyclone » A major storm wreaked havoc in the Pacific Northwest Wednesday with powerful winds and driving rain. Severe weather knocked out power to a half-million customers and downed trees, which killed at least two people.

Forecasters described the front as a ‘bomb cyclone.’

And one resident of Issaquah, Washington called that an apt description.

RESIDENT:  It felt explosive or like there was a bomb going off, breaking glass, the sound of breaking glass. Everything was just very loud. I thought the whole wall was coming down.

A “bomb cyclone” is a term applied to a cyclone that intensifies rapidly.

Officials are warning of excessive rainfall through tomorrow.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: division one female volleyball players make a stand for Title IX and the First Amendment. Plus, Fentanyl drug overdoses are down nationwide…but it’s news that may have a troubling explanation.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 21st of November.

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

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

First up today, female athletes take a stand for their rights.

A federal judge is scheduled to hear a case today involving the San Jose State University volleyball team. The women’s team includes a male player known as Blaire Fleming.

REICHARD: Several teams in the Mountain West Conference have refused to play SJSU this season because Fleming is playing. The conference counts those games as a win for SJSU and a loss for the forfeiting school.

WORLD’s Lindsay Mast talked to one of the players who took a loss and is part of the lawsuit.

LINDSAY MAST: University of Nevada-Reno senior Sia Liilii was an active kid. She played lots of sports, but she fell in love with volleyball. And she needed it, too.

LIILII: I come from a family of 11, so I knew I had to use sports to get an education. So luckily, U Nevada, Reno took a chance on me, and now I'm here.

She’s team captain at the NCAA Division I school this year. But her senior season took a turn after teams in the Mountain West Conference learned that a player on the San Jose State University team is male. He goes by the name Blaire Fleming. When word got out, some teams started to forfeit their games against the California school. They said they had concerns about fairness, opportunity and safety.

AUDIO: [Fleming…” *gasps* “…And Danielson on the receiving end of that one, she pops up, letting everyone know she’s all right.”]

Audio of a hit from Fleming that knocked down a player from the University of New Mexico during a game in October.

As teams started to bow out, The University of Nevada-Reno put out a statement saying their team would play San Jose State. Liilii says she and her teammates weren’t consulted. And when they went to the athletic director and objected

LIILII: Our AD took it in the way where it was, there are two sides to every story, and that we didn't educate ourselves. We didn't know the science behind it and why this person was allowed to invade in these women's spaces, which is pretty disheartening. A lot of us felt like silenced in that meeting because we were asked to reconsider our position.

Ultimately, Liilii says the school made them choose. After a different game in California, they could either get on a bus that was headed to San Jose State to play the game or get on a bus going home to Reno. 16 of the team’s 17 players boarded the bus for Reno. They were assigned a loss, but held a rally the night the game would’ve been played.

LIILII: We are educated enough and we do understand the difference between a male and a female athlete.

Now, Liilii is one of twelve plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit, which alleges Title IX and First Amendment violations. They represent five teams in the Mountain West Conference—and include some of Fleming’s teammates and a San Jose State associate head coach. Additionally, Utah State University filed a motion asking to join the lawsuit this week.

SLUSSER: It's sad that the school still chooses to prioritize one man's needs over an entire team and be willing to get rid of half of our season because of it.

That’s Brooke Slusser, another plaintiff in the suit. She is a co-captain of the San Jose State Team. The lawsuit alleges that the school hid the fact that Fleming is a man from Slusser and the rest of the team despite Slusser sharing rooms with Fleming, not knowing that he was male.

One of San Jose State’s associate head coaches was suspended after speaking out about the players’ safety concerns. Audio of Slusser again, from Fox News:

SLUSSER: She was that one person that everyone felt like they could voice their opinion and truly speak how they felt with the whole situation and feel comforted and them taking that away from us.

Representatives from San Jose State University and the Mountain West Conference both declined to comment.

Bill Bock is an attorney for the plaintiffs and says there’s also a religious component to the case.

BOCK: Brooke, you know, she has a right to privacy. She has a right not to have her body seen by a male, and it's not just a religious right, but it is a religious right because it's part of how she views herself because of her faith. But nobody should have to or be put in a position where they aren't told the truth, and then they find out later that they've exposed themselves to the opposite sex.

Liilii says as a competitor it’s been heartbreaking to take losses on games that were never played. And she says this isn’t about Fleming personally. But standing up matters to the girls and young women who expect an even playing field down the road.

LIILII: We're fighting for them, because that's what it's really about. It's the future of it, because they're trying to work hard enough to be in the position where they play D1 volleyball. But who knows if they'll even get that shot, because a man might take it from them.

Attorney Bill Bock again.

BOCK: These ladies are defenseless, and they're crying out to their administrators, and administrators are trying to get them to, you know, kind of, go into the battlefield and take this on and play, play the game when it's not fair.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lindsay Mast.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: opioid deaths.

For the first time in six years, deaths from drug overdose are declining in the US…, and experts aren’t sure exactly why.

The most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows fatal overdoses are down almost 15 percent. That’s about 16,000 fewer deaths than the year before. And in some states, even fewer people are dying of drug overdose.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: WORLD’s compassion reporter Addie Offereins investigated this and published her findings last week for WORLD Digital. She’s here now to help set up our next story. Good morning, Addie.

ADDIE OFFEREINS: Good morning, Mary.

REICHARD: Well, in just a moment we’ll hear from some experts who spoke with WORLD about this apparently good news. But in your reporting, you heard a surprising admission. What did you find out?

OFFEREINS: So some of my sources, specifically ministry sources, are concerned that fatal overdoses have kind of become the primary metric of how we're measuring whether our fight against addiction is successful. And so in a lot of mainstream circles, it's become about lowering risk, keeping people alive, keeping people safe. But these organizations and ministries, they want more for their clients, and they're really fighting back against this. They're fighting for sobriety. They're fighting for flourishing, and ultimately, life transformation.

REICHARD: Definitions of success can differ. Addie, excellent reporting and analysis. Nice work.

OFFEREINS: Thank you.

REICHARD: Here’s WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown with more from Addie’s report.

WISE: Probably 15 years old, I started smoking marijuana, and it went really quickly to cocaine by the time I was 16 years old

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN: By the time he was 25 years old, Jason Wise’s drug habit had turned into a full-fledged heroin addiction. And much of the heroin he was using also contained fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid that now contaminates most of the drugs on the street.

WISE: Probably 25 times I overdosed and had to be brought back

Wise remembers the last time he overdosed most vividly. He was snorting heroin on a baseball field in North Carolina. That time, he didn’t want to wake up.

WISE: I had just lost my cousin to an overdose, and I went and got the same drugs that she overdosed on and tried to overdose on, and when the guys I was with left me at the baseball field unresponsive.

But a passerby noticed his prone body on the field. Wise recovered. But only after spending five days in a hospital hooked up to a continuous drip of the anti-overdose drug naloxone.

WISE: I barely survived it, and honestly, that scared me so bad that I started searching for something else to fill that void.

That was in 2021. And that same year more than 107,000 people overdosed and died across the United States—a nearly 15% increase from 2020. Between 2019 and 2020 overdoses jumped 30%. The synthetic opioid fentanyl caused the majority of these deaths.

AUDIO: [NEWS REEL MASHUP]

But CDC data shows those dramatic increases stopped in their tracks last year. Northern and southeastern states experienced the most significant decline in deaths. Fatal overdoses dropped 30% in North Carolina.

Sounds like good news, right? But some experts say the decline in deaths points to a dark, underlying reality.

CAULKINS: There's an explosion in overdoses as fentanyl arrives. And then that peaks because everybody's using the fentanyl, that actually starts to decline, because there just aren't as many people around. They've died.

Jonathan Caulkins is a drug policy researcher and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He says fentanyl wiped out a large number of vulnerable drug users first….and there are simply not many susceptible users left alive.

CAULKINS: The people who are using illegal opioids are not all the same. Some are doing things in an extremely risky way. They're using three times a day, not just once a day. They're using alone rather than with friends. And so the numbers of that subset have really gotten knocked down.

In some cases, social isolation policies and treatment center closures during the COVID pandemic accelerated deaths. But Caulkins argues the geography of fentanyl’s deadly progression across the United States played the largest role…. and helps make sense of the recent decline.

CAULKINS: So if we looked only at deaths in Ohio or New Hampshire, where it came first, it already peaked and was heading down before 2023.

National data didn’t reflect the beginning of this decline. That’s because fentanyl was still making its way across the country. It fueled a new spike in deaths every time it flooded a state’s illicit drug market for the first time. But now, the drug is everywhere.

CAULKINS: And so then this natural decline is no longer hidden by Fentanyl reaching yet another state.

Fentanyl reached the West Coast last. That explains why in some western states the decrease looks more like a slight variation in the data, and in others, like Alaska and Nevada, deaths are still going up.

Other experts credit the drop in deaths to the widespread availability of the anti-overdose drug naloxone, also referred to by the brand name Narcan. Van Ingram is the executive director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy.

INGRAM: I think we as a state have gotten better at Narcan distribution, putting it in the hands of people who are more likely to encounter an overdose.

Overdose deaths plummeted 20% in Kentucky. Last year, agencies in the state gave out 160,000 two-dose units of naloxone.

INGRAM: Just see more of a willingness of people to take it now than maybe we saw 2016 2017 you know, in fact, back in those days. I think they're a much greater awareness in 2024 of the risks for fentanyl exposure.

Last week, the Drug Enforcement Administration announced that its latest lab tests show fewer of the pills on the street contain a deadly dose of fentanyl.

Still others attribute the nationwide decline in deaths primarily to U.S. law enforcement activity. Activity that includes large-scale seizures of the drug at the U.S.-Mexico border and the arrests of top Sinaloa cartel leaders this summer.

AUDIO: [SINALOA ARRESTS]

But Jonathan Caulkins at Carnegie Mellon University has his doubts that recent law enforcement activity has permanently obstructed the fentanyl supply chain.

CAULKINS: So the conventional wisdom is that it's really, really hard to stop supply for very long, and the conventional wisdom is that a really big enforcement success can rattle the market, but the market adapts.

Whatever the case, ministry leaders say the battle is far from over.

KEZIAH: Addiction really isn't going anywhere.

Wesley Keziah is the executive director of Ground 40, a Christian residential rehab program in North Carolina. It’s fighting for transformation, not just risk-free addiction.

KEZIAH: Just looking at death is not a good way to rate your success, because there are so many people who are still in bondage.

Jason Wise attended the program after his near-fatal overdose death on the baseball field. He now serves as its intake coordinator. He says that fear of overdosing on opiates like fentanyl is pushing some users to other drugs like methamphetamine. But others are yearning for freedom.

WISE: They're seeing people, the Lord's testimony of people that they know, and they're seeing them change, and that's giving them a hope to reach out to get the same kind of change that people are seeing and getting.

For WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Remember that movie from 2006, Snakes on a Plane? Well, how about hamsters on a plane?

It happened last week! A flight from Lisbon to the Azores turned into a real-life rodent roundup after more than a hundred hamsters escaped their cages in the cargo hold.

The plane landed safely enough, but then bag handlers opened the hold to find the stowaways running amok. Of course, that raised worries about the varmints chewing up the electrical wires.

The critters grounded the plane for four days. But then all the hamsters were accounted for and sent on to their pet shop destination. All is well, with the plane back in Lisbon for a thorough inspection.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Definitely not the sequel we thought we’d get!

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

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, November 21st.

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: the mystery behind an ancient religious relic.

For hundreds of years, the Catholic church claimed to be in possession of the cloth in which Jesus Christ was buried. Many scientists have tried to prove whether the shroud was real or a clever hoax.

Here’s WORLD’s Emma Perley.

EMMA PERLEY: 670 years ago, a large, yellowish piece of cloth first goes on display in a small French church. It’s woven linen with a faint image of a man on it.

The church claims that Jesus Christ was once draped in this burial shroud after his crucifixion and that his likeness was miraculously imprinted onto the surface after his resurrection.

In 1543, the theologian John Calvin argues that the shroud is fake because of widely known Jewish burial customs and he draws evidence from the Bible itself.

The Gospel of John states that Jesus was wrapped in two separate strips of cloth: one for his body, and one for his head. After Jesus rose from the dead, Simon Peter and John found both of these “grave clothes” lying in the tomb. And none of the Apostles mentioned anything miraculous about them.

Even so, many people are convinced that the shroud is real. It’s eventually moved to a cathedral in Turin, Italy, and becomes known as the Shroud of Turin.

And for hundreds of years, its origins remain a mystery.

That is, until 1898.

DOCUMENTARY: He had to get a perfect picture. The church, the king, the world was waiting for it …

Photographer Secondo Pia snaps photos of the shroud for the first time. As he develops the negatives in a dark room, he notices something strange. Audio from The Mystery of the Sacred Shroud documentary.

DOCUMENTARY: His hands shook as he held up the dripping glass. His negative plate contained a positive image instead of the vague impression he had seen on the cross. Here was a complete photographic likeness of a man whose body was covered with clotted blood, whose side showed a large wound, and whose hands and feet showed the marks of one crucified.

The photo is splashed across Italian newspapers. And researchers wonder whether they can use modern science to prove that the shroud is real. Others are skeptical, claiming Pia faked his photograph.

In 1963, a team of researchers start extensively testing the shroud. They realize that there’s no paint or artificial dye on it. And medical examiner Robert Bucklin notes that the wounds on the man are consistent with Jesus’s wounds described in the Bible. He even discovers that the man appears to have at one point carried something heavy over his shoulder.

While it reveals clues to the identity of the man under the shroud, the image itself has puzzled scientists for years—as it’s only 200 nanometers deep into the surface. That’s 400 times smaller than a strand of human hair! In 2015, researcher Paolo Di Lazzaro tests his theory for how the image appeared.

DI LAZZARO: One of the most striking characteristics of the image is the thickness of the coloration. Obviously so thin a coloration that cannot be achieved by any conventional method, painting, drawing…

Di Lazzaro and a team of researchers blast a piece of linen with ultraviolet light. They theorize that the radiation will burn a darker, yellowish color into the fabric.

DI LAZZARO: We started to irradiate several old linen cloth. And after many unsuccessful attempts, we finally obtained a shroud like coloration that reproduces almost the same depth of coloration, like in the image of the Turin shroud.

Di Lazzaro concludes that the image on the shroud could have been produced by a flash of ultraviolet radiation.

A controversial 1988 study dates the shroud to the 14th century using radiocarbon dating. Many have wondered how such an elaborate hoax could have been accomplished during the Medieval period.

But recent testing suggests that the shroud might be much older than that.

In 2022 Italian researcher Liberato De Caro publishes a report that dates the shroud to two thousand years ago, using a method called Wide Angle X-Ray Scattering.

Linen fibers age similarly to the pages of old books. They turn yellow over time as the cellulose breaks down. So De Caro analyzes the fabric by measuring how long it takes for the cellulose to decay. The results produce a date that could be more accurate than radiocarbon methods.

DE CARO: The radiocarbon technique is not suitable for dating textile samples.

More than 400 scientific studies have been conducted on the Shroud of Turin. Many believe that it is one of Christ’s last miracles, out of reach of our modern science toolkit—while others maintain that the shroud is a clever medieval design.

There is still no scientific consensus on the shroud’s origins and it remains one of the most enduring mysteries in our world.

DI LAZZARO: It's likely that is not a fake, but at the same time, is almost impossible to show definitely that it is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. We have to accept the limit of science, the limit of the of our mind, of our knowledge.

REICHARD: Special thanks to WORLD freelancer Chiara Lamberti for her Italian translations.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, November 21st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. President- elect Donald Trump has named two businessmen to lead a new department in hopes of reigning in government spending. WORLD commentator Cal Thomas says “it’s about time.”

CAL THOMAS: Fifty years ago when Texan Ron Paul—father of Sen. Rand Paul—was running for Congress, a billboard featured an obese Uncle Sam with the caption: “let's put big government on a diet.”

Since then, the federal government has grown even more obese. To seriously address the problem, President-elect Trump has designated Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head a Department of Government Efficiency—or DOGE.

The two will be up against a bureaucracy that has a history of protecting itself from reformers. As Ronald Reagan once said:

REAGAN: No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!

The battle against government waste can be won if Musk and Ramaswamy keep the public informed about each proposed reduction. Ridicule is one tool they might use…starting with the annual Pig Book published by Citizens Against Government Waste. It lists pork barrel spending and earmarks—something Republicans were once against. The abuses are shocking and ripe for lambasting.

Here's just one of scores of examples: more than $120 million dollars for 150 earmarks funding the FEMA Emergency Operations Center Grant Program. That’s an 84 percent increase from 2023.

This was before we learned that at least one FEMA employee—who has since been fired—instructed people helping victims of recent hurricanes not to assist anyone with Trump yard signs.

The spending watchdog group reports that since 2008, legislators have added more than 2,000 earmarks to this program. Earmarks are special interest projects that, in effect, buy the support of legislators who might otherwise question the spending increases. According to the report, the earmarks cost taxpayers nearly $2 billion additional dollars.

The group goes on to say that although earmarks for emergency operations centers are often among the most numerous in the appropriations bills, the program could be eliminated in favor of competitive or merit-based awards…allowing states to prioritize critical needs in each area. DOGE should favor eliminating these earmarks.

While they’re at it, they should also scuttle the Department of Education, which educates no one. If it did, test scores and achievement levels would be far higher than the deplorable levels that show too many high school graduates are not proficient in reading and math.

Reagan tried to eliminate the Department of Education, but was opposed by Congress. With a government unified under Republican control, DOGE could have an easier time if Congress will put aside self-interest.

DOGE should also call for a percentage of across-the-board spending cuts. Will the Department of Labor really suffer if it is forced to cut a minimum of its costs by 15 percent?

Every government agency or program has a charter or legislative authority that created it. People who run the cabinet departments and agencies should be brought before Congress and show evidence of results and how they are living up to the stated purposes. If their work can be done at less cost and more efficiently by the private sector, they should be eliminated. That's the pattern most businesses follow, and it should be the pattern for government.

When it comes to health, according to the Global Obesity Observatory, the United States ranks 10th in the world among the most obese nations. If the Department of Health’s current programs do nothing to measurably improve the wellbeing of our nation…it’s time to cut spending there, as well, not increase it.

We can put big government on a diet if we have the will. Our nation is first in debt at $36 trillion and counting. If we don't make a change, we only have to look at history to see what has happened to other nations that spent themselves into oblivion.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet returns for Culture Friday.

And, WORLD’s Collin Garbarino has a review of three current films…including a new movie about Dietrich Bonhoeffer that explores a fascinating part of his life. Plus, your listener feedback. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Myrna Brown.

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 Apostle Paul wrote: “In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan… for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” —Ephesians 1:7-10.

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.