The World and Everything in It: October 27, 2025

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JENNY ROUGH, HOST: Good morning!

Police enter a home without a search warrant, a defendant says he received a double punishment, and the limits to attorney-client communication.

VILLAR: The person says to you, I don’t understand, what do you think went wrong? … And you say, I can’t tell you, just trust me.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: That’s ahead on Legal Docket.

Also, the Monday Moneybeat.

And the WORLD History Book. This week marks the 15th anniversary of a deadly attack on Christians in Iraq.

AUDIO: This is a Christian civilization with Christian history. What's happened has made us hate the country which doesn't protect us and our children. 

ROUGH: It’s Monday, October 27th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Jenny Rough.

MAST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Good morning!

ROUGH: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Trump in Malaysia / Asian peace deal » President Trump was in Malaysia on Sunday to oversee the signing of a new peace deal between Cambodia and Thailand.

Trump helped broker a cease-fire three months ago after deadly border clashes.

TRUMP:  Eighteen Cambodian prisoners of war will be released and under this agreement, observers from ASEAN countries, including Malaysia, will be deployed to make sure that the peace prevails and endures. And I have no doubt that it will.

While both sides agreed to halt the fighting in July, each has since accused the other of fresh attacks.

Trump’s threats of economic pressure prodded the two nations to halt skirmishes along their disputed border.

U.S.-China minerals, soybeans framework » The president also signed economic frameworks with Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia … some of them involving critical minerals.

And while the U.S. wants to rely less on Beijing for those minerals, which are needed for high-tech manufacturing.

U.S. and Chinese officials say a trade deal is drawing closer.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says that ahead of a planned meeting this week between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping …

BESSENT:  I believe that we have the framework for the two leaders to have a very productive meeting, uh, for both sides. And I think it will be fantastic.

That meeting is set for Thursday in South Korea.

Under the deal, the United States would, at least for now … halt plans for steeper tariffs on Chinese goods … while Beijing would hit the pause button on new export controls on rare earth minerals.

Air traffic controllers » The ongoing federal government shutdown has continued to cause thousands of flight delays each week, along with some serious headaches for air travelers.

That as a larger number of air traffic controllers, working without paychecks for now, are calling in sick.

National Air Traffic Control Association President Nick Daniels says his workers are distracted:

DANIELS: Which makes this system less safe Every day that this shutdown continues, tomorrow, we'll be less safe than today.

But Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is assuring the public that flying is not any less safe. He says that’s because they’re keep if they have shortages — or if controllers seem to stressed:

DUFFY: We pay close attention to that and we will reduce the capacity of airplanes taking off and landing, or we will cancel flights.

Duffy says roughly half of all flight delays right now are due to staffing shortages.

Nearly a million-and-a-half federal workers missed paychecks on Friday.

Meantime, on Capitol Hill, still no sign that the government is any closer to reopening.

Narco boat strikes » Democrats continue to criticize President Trump over military strikes against what the administration says are drug cartel vessels in international waters.

The Pentagon announced the 10th such strike on Friday, saying U.S. forces hit a boat operated by the Tren de Aragua cartel, killing 6 on board.

Sen. Tim Kaine said he’s concerned about those strikes and about a buildup of military assets near Venezuela:

KAINE:  If we're gonna be in a war, whether it's against boats in Nicaragua chosen off a secret list that the President won't share with Congress or the public, or a land invasion in Venezuela, it should be done following a debate and a vote in Congress.

A handful of Republicans have also voiced some concern, though most continue to back President Trump’s decision to designate cartels as terrorist organizations and strike them accordingly.

The administration is deploying an aircraft carrier to the Caribbean in the latest escalation of firepower there.

The Pentagon says the military’s mission there is to disrupt cartel trafficking before the drugs make it to U.S. soil.

Hurricane Melissa » Hurricane Melissa is spinning over the northern Caribbean, packing monstrous winds as it bears down on Jamaica.

It’s expected to strike the country’s southern shoreline today as a Category 4 or 5 hurricane, packing winds in excess of 140 miles per hour, possibly more than 160. And then there’s the rain. Larry Kelly with the National Hurricane Center:

KELLY:  Life-threatening, catastrophic flash flooding as possible through portions of Jamaica, and then spreading northward across the Caribbean into Cuba, Haiti, and then eventually the Southeast from Bahamas.

The storm has already been blamed for deaths in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Jamie Rhome, also with the Hurricane Center, says Melissa is moving slowly … and that’s not good news

RHOME: Potential rainfall amounts in excess of three feet over heavily mountainous terrain that is almost certain to create catastrophic flooding, life-threatening flash flooding, roads, impassable communities cut off.

Jamaican authorities have activated shelters and closed Kingston's Norman Manley International Airport

Louvre arrests » Officials in France say they have arrested two suspects in connection with the theft of crown jewels from the Louvre museum in Paris.

The announcement on Sunday came one week after the daring daylight heist.

Authorities arrested one suspect at a Paris airport attempting to leave the country.

The thieves, disguised as maintenance workers, carried out the heist in under 8 minutes … making off with jewels valued at more than $100 million dollars.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Legal Docket. Plus, David Bahnsen and the WORLD History Book.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Monday, the 27th of October.

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

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: And I’m Jenny Rough. Time now for Legal Docket. Today, three criminal law cases. One on the Fourth Amendment, one on the Fifth Amendment, and one on the Sixth Amendment.

Let’s start with the Fourth Amendment: Case versus Montana.

The Fourth Amendment protects people and their homes from unreasonable searches and seizures. It says no search warrant shall be issued without probable cause. Meaning reasonable belief that a crime is being committed. But there are exceptions.

MAST: In this case, police weren’t investigating a crime. They were conducting a welfare check. William Trevor Case’s ex-girlfriend called the police because she had been on the phone with Case when he threatened suicide. She heard him cock a handgun, heard a pop… then silence. At his house, Case didn’t answer the door. Though the window, police saw beer cans, a holster, and what looked like a suicide note.

After 40 minutes, they entered through an unlocked door without a warrant. Case emerged from a closet holding a gun in his outstretched arm. Police shot him but didn’t kill him. Case was then arrested for assaulting a peace officer. He now wants the gun and other evidence suppressed at his trial.

ROUGH: The question here: What standard applies to allow a warrantless entry under the emergency aid exception?

Attorney Fred Rowley represented Case and argued police need probable cause in a welfare check just like they do in a criminal investigation.

ROWLEY: There is no liberty interest more deeply rooted in the Fourth Amendment than the sanctity of the home. … The police entered Trevor Case’s home without permission, a warrant, or even probable cause and they ended up shooting him in his own house.

But Justice Samuel Alito could not imagine the police would need more certainty of an emergency.

ROWLEY: What more would they need here? Look through the window and see him with a gun pointed to his head?

Rowley said the police should have known the circumstances were not urgent because of their prior encounters with him.

Case had threatened suicide before. Police knew of his mental health issues, and knew he was likely attempting suicide-by-cop. Meaning, he wanted to provoke a confrontation with police. Rowley quoted a conversation captured on bodycam.

ROWLEY: I would just quote, for example, police chief Sather says, he ain’t got the guts. This is probably the tenth time I’ve dealt with him doing this. As assessed by the officers on the scene … They drew the inference that he was unlikely to shoot himself.

MAST: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson didn’t think that argument worked in Case’s favor.

BROWN: I find your argument very odd. … I’m thinking the fact that they had a lot of information actually hurts your case, not helps you. … On our axis of information and threat or risk this seems like it’s pretty high.

Because police entered the house for a welfare check, Justice Elena Kagan suggested dropping probable cause language altogether.

KAGAN: One of the things that strikes me here … most of the way we know what probable cause is is because we have a body of case law that talks about it, and it talks about it in an investigatory criminal context. And in this context, that way of figuring out whether there’s probable cause just disappears because that’s not the context we’re in. … Maybe … we just use a different language. … Do you have to have an objectively reasonable basis for believing that somebody needs emergency help?

Whatever the outcome, police need flexibility to help someone whose life is in danger.

ROUGH: Next case, the Fifth Amendment’s double jeopardy clause in Barrett versus the United States. Double jeopardy usually centers on the idea that a defendant cannot be prosecuted twice for the same crime. But also a defendant cannot be punished twice for the same crime.

MAST: Here, Dwayne Barrett drove a getaway car in a robbery that involved a firearm. Crime number one. During the robbery, a victim was shot and killed. Crime number two. A lower court found the separate crimes required two separate punishments under a firearm statute.

The defendant argues that’s wrong. A general rule says that when a defendant commits two crimes that arise from the same conduct, he’s only punished for the more serious crime.

But such an approach could potentially lead to bizarre results. Justice Alito brought up this hypothetical with the defendant’s lawyer Matthew Larsen.

ALITO: Suppose there is a person who is committing a crime and this person is very well versed in the … in our double jeopardy jurisprudence. And so this person commits an offense that has two elements, A and B, and the maximum punishment for that offense is five years, and the person says, wow, if I get caught and convicted, I don’t want to go to jail for five years. But I know that if I commit two other elements, C and D, then the maximum penalty for that offense is only one year. So let me go ahead and commit the greater offense. Does that make any sense?

MATTHEW LARSEN: So such a skilled defendant may engage in that conduct, your Honor. There are ample safeguards in place to protect against any injustice.

He said a court has discretion to impose the higher sentence.

ROUGH: It’s true courts are to presume Congress did not intend for a defendant to be punished twice for the same conduct. But that presumption is set aside if Congress has made it clear that it wants multiple punishments. So this case will boil down to statutory interpretation — whether Congress intended to authorize cumulative punishments or not.

Finally, the Sixth Amendment. Villarreal versus Texas.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees the accused “the assistance of counsel for his defense.” But lawyers still must abide by certain rules and codes of conduct. Think of it this way: Legitimate counseling includes a lawyer rehearsing the defendant’s testimony with him before he takes the stand. Impermissible counseling includes things like scripting answers for the defendant to recite.

MAST: In this case, defendant David Villarreal was accused of murder. At his trial, he testified that he acted in self-defense. About an hour after he took the stand, the judge called a 24-hour recess. The judge then told the defendant’s attorney he could talk trial strategy with the defendant overnight, but not about the testimony itself.

ROUGH: Let me explain the logic here: One purpose of a jury trial is to seek the truth from the evidence and testimony presented. If the defendant testifies, the prosecution will cross-examine him to test the truth of his statements. And the defendant’s attorney cannot coach his client on the stand. Preparation is over. So the judge here was extending that restriction to the overnight recess.

MAST: Villarreal was convicted of murder.

At the Supreme Court, attorney Stuart Banner argued for the defendant and said regrouping overnight is crucial. A defendant needs unrestricted access to his lawyer. Anything less violates his Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

BANNER: Overnight recesses have always been a time of strategizing, discussions. I mean, this is like prime time for, in the middle of a trial, is an overnight recess.

Andrew Warthen for the state of Texas said the restriction is okay because it advances the purpose of truth-telling.

WARTHEN: It’s an empirical predicate of our system of justice that an uncounseled witness is more likely to tell the truth than one who has time to pause and consult with their attorney.

 But Justice Kagan probed the limits of the restriction with this example:

KAGAN: Listen, I’ve been noticing that you’ve been mumbling, and you’re also not making eye contact with the questioner. And it would just be a good idea if you stopped mumbling and made eye contact. Can the lawyer do that during an overnight recess?

WARTHEN: No. I would consider that to be coaching their testimony.

So if Texas gets its way, the content of the defendant’s testimony and how he presents himself are both off-limits.

ROUGH: There’s also a matter of time: short recesses … think lunch and bathroom breaks … versus long ones. Two precedents control here and are hard to reconcile. But both parties agree that limiting communications during a short recess is okay. They’re only fighting about the overnight one. But that made no sense to Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

KAVANAUGH: I’m trying to figure out the logic of a line based on a 15-minute recess versus a lunchtime recess versus a lunchtime plus I have another matter I have to handle so it’s going to be a two-hour break recess versus an overnight recess.

 The rationale for limiting attorney-client communications during short recesses is trial logistics. Banner again:

BANNER: If defendants had the right to confer with counsel during every tiny little recess, you know, one minute, ten seconds, or whatever, it would just be impossible to run a trial.

 He said overnight is different. But Justice Kavanaugh still had concerns.

KAVANAUGH: It depends on the accident of a recess. So those defendants are going to be treated very differently. Does that make a lot of sense?

MAST: The justices also wrestled with the line between discussing trial strategy, allowed… and trial testimony, not allowed. The defendant argued strategy and testimony are too intertwined. A lawyer and his client must be able to discuss both.

Texas disagreed and wanted the line.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett proposed this language

BARRETT: You can’t talk about the content of the testimony or the manner of its delivery, but you can discuss any strategic consequences of the defendant’s testimony, such as whether to take a plea.

ROUGH: But how that would play out proved confusing. Here’s an exchange between Texas’ attorney Warthen and Justice Kagan.

WARTHEN: You can tell them: You need to take the plea bargain. And if the defendant says, well how did I do a terrible job? You would just have to tell them, I’m under a court order. I cannot tell you why that’s true. But in my professional opinion, you need to understand that the best course of action for you now is to take the plea bargain.

JUSTICE KAGAN: Why is that, Mr. Warthen? … The person says to you, I don’t understand, like, what do you think went wrong? Like why was it so serious? … And you say, I can’t tell you. Just trust me that you have to take a plea bargain. And the person says what do you mean trust me? I mean, I want to understand why this went so wrong. … Like shouldn’t the lawyer be able to say, here’s what went wrong, here’s why it’s really consequential, here’s why you should take a plea bargain?

A difficult balance. I get the purpose of the limitation, but I wonder if a rule that’s too restrictive could also impede truth-finding.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: The Monday Moneybeat. From Istanbul, here’s Nick Eicher.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s time now to talk business, markets and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bahnsen. David heads up the wealth management firm the Bahnsen Group, and he is here now. Good morning to you.

DAVID BAHNSEN: Good morning, Nick. Good to be with you.

EICHER: Well, let’s begin north of the border. Canadian trade talks with the United States were thrown off course a bit last week after the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, put on the air over the weekend during the World Series an anti-tariff ad quoting Ronald Reagan.

This angered President Trump. He called off negotiations over the weekend. Ford backed off a bit—he said he would pause the campaign, but not until today.

David, what’s your read on this unusual flare-up over tariffs? Is this mostly political theater, do you think, or does it point to something else?

BAHNSEN: Yeah, I thought actually the most interesting thing was that President Trump responded by announcing he was pulling all talks and back to 100 percent tariffs with Canada. And then the market responded by going up 500 points on Friday.

We are so far past the point of markets taking any of this seriously—it’s really staggering. It was about 3:45 in the morning Eastern Friday that I heard this announcement of what had flared up, and you would expect six, eight, ten months ago that it was going to lead to some sort of market response.

I think markets are doing what appears to me the counterparties are doing as well, which is just shrugging off all those types of threats and so forth.

What’s really interesting is that the President was upset, and even the Reagan Foundation chimed in that they thought the quotes were altered or edited in a way that was a little deceiving—and there was no reason for Canada to do that, because if they want quotes from President Reagan speaking against tariffs, there are plenty of them, I assure you.

EICHER: They kind of picked the wrong one, didn’t they?

BAHNSEN: Well, I think they picked one and then they misused it, is what the President feels. And of course, what really upset them was just their attempt to poke the bear. Doug Ford is not a fan of the President, and so it just again was taken to be a hostile situation that President Reagan did not did not agree with protectionism is indisputable. But the fact that this is all just going to blow over and there’s going to end up being some sort of discussion with the U.S. and Canada and where it all goes, you know, that also is beyond debate. I mean, it’s going to happen—and that’s why markets shrugged it off.

EICHER:All right, David, back here in the U.S.—well, I shouldn’t say it that way … I’m in Turkey at the moment, assuming I actually get back home sometime soon.

But back home … inflation went up slightly in the month of September—three percent year over year, just a bit above August’s pace. I still see that the Fed is on track for two more rate cuts. It looks like it’s in the high 90s that it’s going to continue to cut rates, even though it’s 3 percent and not 2, which is the target—bringing me to the Wall Street Journal editorial board raising the question: “Is three the new two?”

What do you think?

BAHNSEN: Well, as long as President Trump is there, it could be three, it could be four, it could be two—nobody cares. They’re cutting rates because they have been asked to do that, and the pressure is on.

I believe they’re right to do it, because they recognize that the thing putting upward pricing pressure is not monetary. The Fed has to respond to upward pricing pressure that is monetarily driven by raising rates, but this is not the case.

What is most interesting by far is that as the inflation rate ticked up a little, the Wall Street Journal is right—anyone else who’s pointing this out is right—everyone is right now just sort of ignoring the fact that the inflation rate is higher than it was the last several months of Biden’s presidency.

And we’re all talking about how we’ve beaten inflation, and the reality is, it’s just certain prices that are a bit higher because of tariffs. That’s what’s going on.

So I don’t think the Fed should be responding, because there isn’t anything the Fed can do about that.

But what I think is most interesting is that this was one of the first readings where the contribution to the inflation rate from this really lagged and antiquated housing measure was actually way down, and the owner’s-equivalent rent did show a much lower number than it has, and yet the inflation number stayed higher.

So the impact of certain prices with tariffs is definitely more pronounced than anyone is wanting to talk about. But I still don’t believe that gets to a level of the Fed saying, “Well, we’re going to use interest rates to try to adjust that.” There’s nothing they can do.

Why they want to be cutting rates, Nick, is because they’re worried about the labor market. They’re worried about a softening economy.

And so yes, the Fed will cut in October and they will cut in December.

EICHER: All right—so, the government shutdown now. A lot of news this past week. It’s going into its fourth week. The pressure is starting to show a little bit, I guess.

I mean, lawmakers in both parties are somewhat starting to break ranks. Some Republicans are pushing standalone bills; a few Democrats are kind of hinting they might support some narrow fixes.

But still, the leaders are kind of dug in, and the White House hasn’t said what kind of deal it would accept.

Where do you think things stand right now? And I guess I’m curious why we’re even talking about what the House has passed, because it was such a short-term CR.

We’re almost at that point—they’re going to have to do some other kind of deal, just because time is going to run out, aren’t they?

BAHNSEN: Yeah, they will at some point. The reason they haven’t yet is because absolutely nobody cares right now other than the government employees directly affected by it.

It is absolutely stunning how little attention any of it’s getting this week. I would guess—I’m not being hyperbolic—to say that in the week that just concluded, you had 100 times more press coverage of a sports-betting arrest around prop bets and NBA basketball games than you did the government shutdown.

There’s no pressure for either side to have to capitulate yet—and there will be—but at this point there just isn’t any heavy political pressure. Both sides are letting the clock run out.

But you’re very astute, Nick, to say that by the time they do come to a deal, they’ll be far enough down the line that it’s going to have to be something different. So any kind of really short-term CR becomes somewhat ineffectual at this point.

EICHER: I did also, David, want to get your take on this pardon for the crypto executive Chang Peng Zhao, the founder of the crypto exchange Binance—less than two years after he pleaded guilty to money laundering.

Since then, he has become a business partner in a Trump-linked digital-currency venture, and even some Trump allies are critical of the move.

Now, as soon as I brought that up, you sighed. I take it this pardon is really bothersome to you?

BAHNSNEN: Yes, it is—and it’s always hard for me, Nick, because I recognize that a lot of people are so appreciative of certain things the President has done in the policy realm that I don’t think people like it when I’m critical.

I cannot even imagine somebody defending this pardon. It would be incomprehensible to me. He pled guilty. He is guilty. It was a crime. He wasn’t over-sentenced, and he is in direct, very lucrative business with the President and his family.

And then to now go get this pardon … I guess the only thing people can say is, “Well, what about the pardon the Bidens did?” And I thought that was wrong too. So I’m not going to do the what-about-ism—it all bothers me.

I recognize that at this time the presidential pardon right is something embodied in the Constitution. I’m not one who believes it is being executed these days as our founders envisioned.

But there’s not much else that can be said here. I really would have a very hard time seeing anyone defend this pardon.

EICHER: David Bahnsen, founder, managing partner and Chief Investment Officer at The Bahnsen Group. He writes regularly for WORLD Opinions, and at dividend-cafe.com. David, thanks so much. We’ll talk to you next time.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick. Good to be with you.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Monday, October 27th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: And I’m Jenny Rough. Up next, the WORLD History Book. One of the deadliest modern attacks, against Iraqi Christians happened fifteen years ago this week. WORLD’s Paul Butler has the story.

PAUL BUTLER: October 31st, 2010. Dusk settles over Baghdad. Inside the Sayidat al-Nejat Cathedral evening Mass is underway. About 120 Christians sit on the simple wooden pews of the Syrian Catholic church known as Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

Meanwhile, militants detonate a car bomb outside the nearby Iraqi stock exchange. Terrorists armed with suicide vests and grenades attack the exchange itself, injuring two guards. It is a calculated diversion to draw Iraqi security forces away from the real target: the cathedral.

Soon after the blast, a handful of militants linked to Al-Qaida climb over the courtyard wall and storm the church. Deacon Louis Clements was inside. Audio here from EWTN.

DEACON LOUIS CLEMENTS: He says their intention was evil. It was to kill. They considered everyone in the church an infidel deserving of death.

Terrorists throw several grenades and spray the crowd inside with gunfire. They approach the priest at the altar, tell him to lie down, and then shoot him in front of the congregation.

The militants then take the survivors hostage. During a short phone call they demand that Iraqi authorities release all al-Qaida-linked prisoners—beginning with two women in Egypt—wives of Coptic priests. The terrorists claim the women converted to Islam and are being held against their will in monasteries.

The terrorists speak to an Egyptian television station and even issue a message directed to the Vatican. The threat is short and direct: “You have to pressure them to release our sisters, otherwise death will reach you all.”

Hostages are afraid to make a sound, fearing the militants will kill them if they do. Deacon Louis Clements once again:

DEACON LOUIS CLEMENTS: We stayed here for four hours in terror and fear. We had surrendered to fate.

Officials begin negotiating with the terrorists, but conversations break down. The militants threaten to blow themselves up if Iraqi security or US forces storm the building.

After dark, the police decide to enter the church anyway. The lights go out as the security forces rush in. The terrorists began shooting the hostages. A massive blast erupts as a militant near the altar detonates a suicide vest.

As security forces gain entry, a gunman downstairs kills about 30 hostages there. The siege ends shortly after 10:00 pm. Survivors are evacuated out through rubble and carnage.

SOUND: [SECURITY FORCES TRANSPORTING SURVIVORS OUT]

The massacre leaves at least 58 people dead and 78 wounded. Casualties include two priests, many women and children, 12 policemen, and five bystanders.

Raad Bashar lives near the church and speaks with the Associated Press after the standoff ends.

RAAD BASHAR: It's a terrible day. Every day it gets worse…I want to leave Iraq. This country's worth nothing. All it's given us was suffering, murder and violence.

International response is swift. Pope Benedict denounces the assault as “ferocious.” Italy airlifts 26 of the wounded to Rome for treatment. France grants asylum to 150 Iraqi Christians, including some of the injured.

In Bagdad, the tragedy prompts outrage. Thousands of Christians and Muslims take to the streets in northern Iraq, condemning the violence.

PROTESTER: We don't want discrimination among Christians, Muslims and Kurds. All of us are fraternal minorities. We don't want discrimination among sects.

The church reopens but many talk about leaving. Like this man who lost a son and grandson in the attack.

BAGDAD RESIDENT: We don’t want to leave because we’ve watered this country's soil with our blood for thousands of years. This is a Christian civilization with Christian history. What's happened has made us hate the country which doesn't protect us and our children.

Two months after the massacre, the church cancels its Christmas Eve service, as do most other Christian churches in Bagdad. More than a thousand Christians flee to the Kurdish north.

AP NEWS: Thousands of Christians have already fled their homes in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul in recent months as a direct result of the renewed violence

15 years later, the specter of terror still affects the Christian community here. Christians continue to face discrimination and violence. Reports of harassment and intimidation are common. The Christian population in Iraq was estimated at 1.5 million before 2003. Only about 150,000 remain.

SOUND: [SAYIDAT AL-NEJAT CATHEDRAL SERVICE]

The Cathedral has been restored. Wood panelling now covers the inside pillars and walls…and the bullet holes beneath. The updated sanctuary is airy and awash in beautiful light. A rich carpet covers the once blood stained floor. But a red marble line runs from the altar to the cathedral steps: partly a nod to the attack, but also a reminder that it is only the blood of Christ that brings hope and salvation to the world outside.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Paul Butler with additional reporting from Mary Muncy.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Tomorrow: how the EU is responding to Russia’s drone incursions of its airspace. And, outside an abortion facility, a street preacher’s style stirs tension with other pro-lifers. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Lindsay Mast.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: And I’m Jenny Rough.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

Scripture records the words of Paul:

“Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” —Acts 20:31, 32

Go now in grace and peace.

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