The World and Everything in It: October 22, 2024

PREROLL: On October 7th, 2023, a man from Thailand was one of 30 Thai nationals taken hostage by Hamas. I’m Paul Butler, and later today we’ll meet his Christian family still waiting for his return.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Natural disasters make everyday life that much more difficult, and this year in North Carolina there’s also an election to worry about.

DUNCAN: We have received some ballots that have, like, little smudges of mud on them, and that's okay. We’re able to process them as long as we can tell what your intention to vote was.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today: Pro-abortion lawyers in Ohio are using the state’s new constitutional right to abortion to chip away at pro-life protections.

BAER: They're going after everything you know, common sense regulations that both parties support.

And, WORLD Opinions contributor Hunter Baker wonders why voters are so nonchalant about the national debt.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, October 22nd. 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!

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Israel documents leak » The White House says it has launched an investigation into how classified documents showing Israel's preparations for a potential attack on Iran were released online.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby:

KIRBY: We're deeply concerned, and the president remains deeply concerned, about any leakage of classified information into the public domain. That is not supposed to happen, and it's unacceptable when it does.

The documents, which were marked top secret, were meant only to be seen by intelligence officials in the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Instead, White House officials say they were posted to the messaging app Telegram on Friday. Kirby said it's not yet clear if the documents were hacked or leaked.

But GOP Sen. Tom Cotton says he’s betting it’s the latter.

COTTON: We shouldn't be surprised that we've seen from this administration more than a year's worth of leaks hostile to Israel. From the very top to the very bottom, they're packed with people who are hostile to Israel and sympathetic to Iran and its terror networks.

Israel has promised retaliation after Iran’s recent large-scale rocket attack against Israel.

Israel-Hezbollah » Meanwhile…

SOUND: [Explosions over Beirut]

Israeli airstrikes rocked Beirut overnight. Israel's military says those strikes were on sites used by the nonprofit Al-Qard al-Hassan, an organization Israel says is involved in funneling money to the Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari:

HAGARI: One of our main targets last night was an underground vault with millions of dollars in cash and gold. The money was being used to finance Hezbollah's attacks on Israel. This vault was deliberately located under a residential building.

Hagari said Hezbollah is largely financed by Iranian oil sold in Syria as well as suitcases of cash and gold flown by Iran into its embassy in Beirut.

Trump in N.C., Cooper reaction » With Election Day now just 2 weeks away, Donald Trump visited the storm-ravaged Asheville, North Carolina area on Monday.

But it’s safe to say, he was not there at the invitation of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. 

COOPER:  Here in Western North Carolina, we don't need the election process to hurt recovery efforts.

Cooper accuses Trump of spreading misinformation about the response to Hurricane Helene while Trump accuses the Biden administration of dropping the ball in its storm response. The former president told storm victims:

TRUMP:  I'm with you and the American people are with you all the way. On January 20th, you're going to have a, I think a new crew coming in to do it properly and help you in a proper manner.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell also spoke in Asheville Monday, vowing that her agency will remain in western North Carolina until the recovery is complete.

Harris, Trump campaigning » Later in the day, Trump rallied supporters in eastern North Carolina. 

TRUMP: Thank you very much, and a very special hello to Greenville!

We’ll hear from some of those North Carolina voters the candidates are hoping to persuade later in the program.

Vice President Kamala Harris, meantime, blitzed several swing states on Monday, including Michigan and Wisconsin … telling voters that pro-life protections violate women’s rights. 

HARRIS:  You don't have to abandon your faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling women what to do with their body.

She also took aim at Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. 

HARRIS: The consequences of him being President of the United States are brutally serious.

In an average of recent polls, Trump currently has at least a small lead in every major swing state. And the five most recent national polls, conducted within the last 10 days, suggest that Trump now enjoys a 1-point advantage now in the popular vote.

Musk giveaway » Meanwhile, a high profile political ally of Donald Trump, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is giving out a $1 million dollar prize every day until the election. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports:

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Musk says any registered voter who signs his political action committee’s petition supporting Constitutional rights — specifically, the First and Second Amendments, will be entered to win one of those million-dollar prizes.

Some Democrats, though, say it’s a violation of federal law to link a cash handout to signing a petition that also requires a person to be registered to vote; even though the giveaway rules don’t require entrants to actually cast a ballot.

Musk says a new winner will be drawn at random every day through November 5th.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Georgia dock collapse » In coastal Georgia, newly surfaced eyewitness video reveals the moment a gangway collapsed at a dock, killing seven people.

Irwin Jones was one of the survivors. 

JONES:  I felt it start to slide, like going backwards. So I leaped and jumped. The two girls behind me, they fell in, the whole ramp fell and collapsed. I looked around, and they was floating.

A crowd was leaving an island festival on Saturday when the accident occurred.

Walter Rabon is commissioner of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

RABON:  Approximately 20 people fell into the water at the marsh landing dock. Guests were in the process of loading the ferry, the amory, which was tied up to the dock.

Video shows bystanders jumping into action to rescue those who plunged into the water.

I'm Kent Covington.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 22nd of October.

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.

First up: Elections in the wake of natural disasters.

Hurricanes Helene and Milton damaged voting precincts and made some roads leading to them impassable.

That forced some election officials to make new plans, and to work double-time to make sure voters know about them.

REICHARD: WORLD’s Mary Muncy has the story of one community trying to organize a smooth election.

BRUCE O’CONNELL: I'm presently running for county commission in Buncombe County.

MARY MUNCY: Bruce O’Connell runs an inn just outside of Asheville, North Carolina.

O’CONNELL: The business was shut down a month early. Our busiest month, of course, is October, and to lose that is about 20 to 25 percent of the revenue of the entire season.

The hurricane didn’t damage O’Connell’s property, but he was without power until last week, and still doesn’t have potable water.

His district in Buncombe County is in the middle of some of the worst-hit areas in the state.

O’CONNELL: Swannanoa was all but wiped out. Up in Barnardsville, I'd say all but wiped out. I mean, it was the worst I've ever imagined.

O’Connell says everyone has suffered, and it’s totally upended election crunch time.

O’CONNELL: We had this event, that event, we had debates, we had forums, we had people wanted to meet me. Everything got canceled.

He says things are slowly returning to normal, but the hurricane changed people’s priorities as many people are still worried about basic survival not politics.

O’CONNELL: I've toned it way down. I'm not going to insult people right now by talking about politics when they're just trying to get a glass of water and be able to flush their toilet.

O’Connell has recorded a few radio ads and blanketed his district in yard signs… but he’s not scheduling any events. Besides, he has to worry about shutting down and winterizing his inn.

Elysha Theis lives just outside of Asheville. she’s one of those voters whose priorities have changed.

ELYSHA THEIS: The hurricane does make me kind of little bit more weary about voting.

She works remotely, and had to take about two weeks off while she waited for the power to come back on. Now she’s not sure if she wants to take more time off to vote.

THEIS: I've been on the fence about voting. So there's part of me that's just like voting is nine to five. I wish it was a little bit later, right?

Theis says her brain has been in “hurricane-recovery mode” for the last few weeks and she hasn’t been thinking about the election as much as she normally would have.

THEIS: I'm sure, like, if the hurricane didn't happen, my social media content would be more related to voting and where to vote and who to vote and whatnot, but right now, the content I'm seeing is still primarily on hurricane relief efforts.

After the storm, North Carolina’s State Election Board issued an emergency notice, allowing counties affected by the hurricane to change their plans as needed.

Most of the changes in Buncombe County came in the form of finding new polling locations. Some of the usual spots are damaged, others are inaccessible, and some have been turned into relief hubs.

The county has also had to change the hours for early voting. Normally they’d be open until 7:30, but they shortened it to 5:00 and opened up on the weekends. that way the poll workers don’t have to drive in the dark.

The county has most of the changes planned. Now, the challenge is trying to get the word of the changes out to voters.

CORRINNE DUNCAN: We're lucky that we have a good media outlet here in in western North Carolina. So we're leaning heavily on that.

Corrinne Duncan is the director of elections for Buncombe County. She says they’ve had to work harder this year to get the message out.

CORRINNE DUNCAN: We're doing all of the normal things, posting on our website, doing social media, doing press releases, but we're also putting it on the radio. The radio ended up being a very good means of communication during this event.

The main thing they’re relying on is word of mouth—especially in areas where polling locations have changed.

But that only helps people still in the state:

DUNCAN: We did have to ramp up our operations, because we have an increase in absentee requests, as you might expect, from people evacuating the area.

The county had already sent out a round of mail-in ballots before the hurricane hit, and it had to change its process slightly for the second round afterward.

DUNCAN: Our vendor for where we normally get the the ballots metered, they were flooded. So the me and another staff member sat on the floor of the post office and put stamps on ballots and made it happen.

Duncan hasn’t heard of many people who lost their absentee ballots in the flood, but they’re able to replace them if someone did.

DUNCAN: We have received some ballots that have, like, little smudges of mud on them, and that's okay. We're able to process them as long as we can tell what your intention to vote was.

Most North Carolina voters I talked to had a plan to vote, even if they hadn’t been thinking about it as much as the last cycle.

And communication efforts are working. Theis heard about early voting sites from party offices and it’s helping her formulate her own plan.

THEIS: They do a wonderful job, I gotta say, like, I mean the amount of information I get from them about early voting. So, yeah, right, I'm like, ‘Oh, well, maybe I could just early vote.’ You know?

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: voters in 10 states are preparing to cast ballots on abortion-related amendments.

Last year, voters in Ohio placed a right to abortion in their state constitution.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And that’s led to legal challenges that have placed holds on pro-life regulations even though they’ve not yet been struck down.

Here’s WORLD life beat reporter Leah Savas on what’s next.

LEAH SAVAS: Joan Stowell took my call last week while sitting in her car across from the only abortion facility in Toledo. She counted the cars of patients at the facility.

JOAN STOWELL: We have, let’s see—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven—we have seven or eight patients here currently.

Stowell is a pro-life sidewalk counselor. For about six years, she’s been coming regularly to the Toledo Women’s Center.

STOWELL: I'm out here every single day that they're open when I don't have needs for my family or my grandchildren or I'm babysitting or whatever.

Stowell says the daily number of patients coming to the facility has been lower recently. She estimates that it’s been more like four to 10 patients in a given day. That number used to be anywhere from six to 25, by her count. But the decrease is not necessarily a good thing.

STOWELL: When they had the 24 hour waiting period, we knew for the most part that the mothers would come back twice.

A recent state court ruling blocked enforcement of a pro-life law. That law required women to wait 24 hours after an initial appointment before getting an abortion. Stowell thinks that’s why she sees less traffic at the abortion center. The decrease doesn’t mean there are fewer abortions happening—it just means more women are only coming once for an abortion.

STOWELL: So that's really hurt because with the 24-hour rule, that really helped us, because we would see the patients the first day that they came, and then we would see them on the second day. So but now most of the patients are coming in one day, and that's it. We're not seeing them again.

Stowell remembers getting a call from one woman years after they met outside of the abortion facility.

STOWELL: I said, “Did you end up going through with your abortion?” She said, “No, I didn't.” And she said, “Thank goodness for that 24 hour waiting period. Because if it wasn't for that waiting period, I probably would have done it that day.” And I said, “So how's it going? How's your baby? And she goes, my baby is almost two now….”

The injunction on Ohio’s 24-hour waiting period law is a direct result of the new right to abortion Ohioans added to the state constitution last year.

After Dobbs overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Ohio law protected unborn babies with detectable heartbeats for a few weeks. But then a state court challenge put the heartbeat law on hold. And with the new constitutional amendment in effect, pro-lifers have no hope of it being enforceable again. They’re also struggling to maintain the state’s other pro-life protections.

AARON BAER: Unfortunately, the things we predicted in the campaign have really started to come true here in Ohio.

Aaron Baer is president of the Center for Christian Virtue in Ohio.

BAER: They're going after everything you know, common sense regulations that that both parties support.

His group was a part of Protect Women Ohio, the coalition of pro-life organizations that opposed the amendment. They said at the time that pro-abortion groups would use the amendment to invalidate any pro-life law in the state.

BAER: And sure enough, just in the last year, there's been two lawsuits have filed, been filed, and they've successfully blocked in lower courts our laws requiring 24-hour waiting period before abortion, requiring informed consent before abortions. Then another lawsuit was filed that, you know, basically obliterates all of the regulations on the abortion pill.

In August, two judges ruled to block enforcement of all three regulations while the lawsuits are pending. And that’s already having an effect on prescriptions for abortion drugs. Here’s Stowell, talking about the Toledo abortion facility.

STOWELL: Currently, it's $850 to perform a chemical abortion. For years and years, they did it till 9.6 weeks. But now, within the last two weeks, they switched it to 11.6 weeks that they're performing the abortion, the chemical abortion.

The FDA has only approved use of the abortion pill through 10 weeks gestation. But lower courts don’t get the final word on these laws.

MICHAEL GONIDAKIS: We believe by the middle of 2025 there'll be a case before the Ohio Supreme Court.

Michael Gonidakis is the president of Ohio Right to Life. He said because of these and other anticipated lawsuits, Ohio’s pro-life groups are focusing on the state Supreme Court races.

GONIDAKIS: Yeah, look, everything's at stake. And the most important thing for pro-life voters, and if you're a single issue, pro-life voter is the Ohio Supreme Court.

The seven-member court currently has a slim 3 to 4 Republican majority, but three seats are up for grabs next month. If Democrats—including two incumbents—win all three races, the court will flip to a pro-abortion majority. That would be bad news for the state’s pro-life laws.

An eventual ruling from that court on the new abortion amendment will set the tone for what pro-life laws are and are not allowed in Ohio.

GONIDAKIS: You know, I ask my brothers and sisters in the pro-life movement, when that case, abortion case, gets before the Ohio Supreme Court in 2025—the one I mentioned earlier—do you want a conservative court writing the opinion, or do you want a liberal, pro-abortion court writing the opinion? That's what's on the line.

Next month, voters in other prolife states like Florida and Missouri will be voting on amendments very similar to the one in Ohio. If those pass, pro-lifers there could find themselves reliving this same story.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leah Savas.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Walking your dog can be one of life’s pleasures. And last month, a man set a world record doing just that.

Well, not exactly that: The record he set was to walk 38 dogs, all at once! Mitchell Rudy is the record setter. He bested the prior record of 36 tethered together for a simultaneous walk just over a half mile.

RUDY: These dogs are all figuring out how to work together for each other. They all come from various different homes or bad situations.

It’s for a good cause: all the dogs are from a rescue shelter in South Korea.

The hard truth here is that Korea is phasing in a ban on eating dogs … takes full effect in 20-27, so the event was aimed at promoting awareness of dogs as pets.

RUDY: Appreciate your trust.

And if dogs could talk, they’d say the same, I’m sure.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, October 22nd.

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: the long wait for the hostages to come home.

On October 7th last year, the terror group that runs Gaza took more than 250 hostages from Israel. Hamas is said still to have about 100 of them in Gaza, only about half of them considered to be alive.

Most of the hostages are Israeli citizens, but Hamas took people who came from all over the world including Americans, and about 30 people from Thailand.

REICHARD: Many of the Thais have been released, but several still remain in captivity. WORLD’s Paul Butler has the story of the family of one of those Thai hostages.

PAUL BUTLER: On a recent Sunday, about 30 people gather in a rural Thailand church. A large monitor up front prominently features photos of a 32-year-old Thai man…across the top are the words: “Pray for Watchara Sriaoun and his family.”

Sriaoun was in southern Israel during the brutal attack on October 7th, 2023. He was taken hostage by Hamas. His mother, father, and 9-year-old daughter back in Thailand await news of his condition.

WIWWARO SRIAOUN: We can only pray to God. Asking people doesn’t give us answers.

Wiwwaro Sriaoun is Watchara’s mother.

WIWWARO SRIAOUN: Even the village chief or headman cannot confirm anything. We have nothing but our prayers to God.

Her son moved to Israel with his brother in 2020. They left their village to earn money for their father’s medical bills and to send enough money back to renovate their family’s house.

Watchara had also hoped to use some of the money he was earning in Israel to buy a piece of land back in Thailand so that he could build a house for himself and his daughter.

WIWWARO SRIAOUN: I recall what my son said to me. He told me, 'Mother, as long as I’m not dead, you don’t have to worry. I will provide everything for you.' That was how he encouraged me.

After the October 7th attack, Wiwwaro asked Watchara’s brother to return home, afraid of losing another son.

But without the brothers income, the family has had to work harder on their small farm—cultivating rice and rubber. But Watchara’s father Tom is only getting worse.

TOM SRIAOUN: I feel so heavy. I've been to the hospital two to three times because of my son being taken.

Tom doesn’t say what his condition is, but he describes how it’s affecting him now.

TOM SRIAOUN: My blood pressure was high, and I had to be admitted to the hospital a few times. I can't stop thinking about it—since the incident in Israel, until today, I still think about my son all the time.

Released hostages report that they were kept in dark tunnels, starved, and at times tortured. Tom watches the news constantly, hoping to hear anything about his son, praying that it’s good news. But so far, it’s just been more war.

FOX: Israeli forces have widened their rade into northern Gaza.

BBC: Hezbollah says it’s fired dozens of missiles into Israel.

FOX: Earlier today, Iran warned the US to keep its military forces out of Israel.

Since October 7th, Israel has been systematically destroying Hamas in Gaza, even taking out its leader last week.

Many relatives and friends of the hostages are hoping for a ceasefire deal that would result in their freedom. The White House has been pressuring Israel to agree to one too. But so far Israel’s prime minister has said a cease-fire would only further endanger Israelis.

Wiwwaro Sriaoun says she just wants the brutal war to end.

WIWWARO SRIAOUN: I'm just an ordinary Thai person caught in these terrible events. Everyone has suffered enough, and I have suffered enough too, waiting for my son. For over a year now, I've been waiting, and I still haven't heard anything about how my son is doing.

In August, Watchara’s ex-wife died, leaving Tom and Wiwwaro to care for their 9-year-old granddaughter, Irada…adding still more financial pressure to their family. Wiwwaro says with God’s help, she’s trying to stay strong for Irada and she still has hope that Watchara will return.

WIWWARO SRIAOUN: I love you, my son. I’m always worried about you. I'm waiting for you to come back. Everyone misses you. If there’s a chance, if anyone can help, please do. I'm tired, tired of waiting.

For Irada’s part, she goes to school and helps her family on the farm. She attends church with her grandparents and even helps lead worship. Irada prays for her father before every meal. She’s done so ever since he was taken.

IRADA SRIAOUN: May my father return home soon, in the name of the Lord.

She says “may my father return home soon. In the name of the Lord, Amen.”

IRADA SRIAOUN: Amen. FAMILY SAYS AMEN.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Paul Butler with reporting from Mary Muncy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, October 22nd. 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.

From the early 1970s to the end of the 20th century, a major political issue in the United States was the national debt. But this election cycle, neither presidential candidate is offering much of a plan to fix it. WORLD Opinions contributor Hunter Baker says that is a mistake.

HUNTER BAKER: After the national debt nearly doubled during the Jimmy Carter administration, Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan made the problem a top campaign issue…

CLIP REAGAN: Carter is acting as if he hadn't been in charge for the past three and a half years as if someone else ran up nearly two hundred billion dollars in federal red ink as if someone else was responsible for the largest deficit including off budget items in American history…

Reagan won the election, but the US national debt continued to rise during his presidency. He was a natural fiscal conservative who was hamstrung by his determination to win the Cold War through defense spending. Not to mention a Congress hostile to his desire to cut domestic spending. Reagan’s tax cuts are often blamed for the continued yearly deficits, but the reality is revenues grew. The problem was spending.

The end of the Cold War offered a respite. The United States was able to reduce military spending and realize a sort of peace dividend. Thanks to a combination of President Bill Clinton’s fiscal policy and the restraint imposed by a Republican Congress beginning in 1994, the government did what seemed impossible. It produced a surplus rather than a deficit from 1998 to 2001. The United States, it appeared, would actually begin to pay down its national debt and achieve a level of fiscal discipline that would only cement its post–Cold War dominance.

What has happened since can only be characterized as a fiscal disaster. The shocks of 9/11, wars in the Middle East, the financial crisis of 2008, and the nation’s response to COVID-19 all radically changed the budget picture. Since that last surplus in 2001, the United States has become a nation with a spiraling yearly deficit. It has exceeded a trillion dollars in most years since 2008, when Barack Obama was elected president. Continuing through the Trump and Biden administrations.

Demographic trends work against us as we appear to have lost all budget discipline. Social Security and Medicare recipients have grown as a population while U.S. birth rates have declined. That means there are relatively few workers to support a very large body of beneficiaries.

Despite this growing crisis few seem to be talking about it…even as the debt has increased by $7 trillion during Joe Biden’s single term alone. We are now spending more on interest each year than on national defense. The only budget item we spend more on than our debt is Social Security and Medicare. All of us realize—or should realize—that interest on the debt will work against us the same way compound interest benefits the saver.

The Republican Party once campaigned on a platform of cutting government spending and paying down the national debt. To be fair, Democrats of a certain stripe attacked the problem from a different position, which was proposing to raise taxes to generate more budget dollars. Neither side has a plan today. Neither is talking to voters in a sober, pragmatic way about what must be done to put our fiscal house in order.

We live in an age in which there is a near-constant dialogue about justice. Criminal justice, social justice, environmental justice, immigration justice—just to name a few. One form of justice that has gone sadly neglected is generational justice. Through our irresponsible budget practices, printing of money, massive interest charges, and lost purchasing power we are leaving the generations who come after us in a greatly hampered position. They are like a couple who enters a restaurant at the end of the evening and are presented with the bill for all the parties that ate at the same table before them. It isn’t right.

One of the most fundamental tasks of any government is to maintain a solid fiscal foundation for future generations to build upon. It’s time for America’s political class to stop pretending budgetary limits don’t matter.

I’m Hunter Baker.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: A handful of close Senate races are on the ballot this cycle. We’ll consider the likelihood of a power shift there on Washington Wednesday.

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: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” —Romans 1:16-17.

Go now in grace and peace.

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