The World and Everything in It — October 31, 2019

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! The tornadoes in Dallas devastated property but Christians are joining forces to help restore lives.

JOSH: So just kind of amazing that literally we had people standing right here where I’m in the chapel where, it’s obviously demolished, but just what a blessing that literally no people were inside there to receive the brunt of that.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Plus secrets of an award-winning pumpkin farmer. 

LIGGETT: I must admit that early on I was really competitive, but now, if I win, fine…but if I don’t, I’ve won enough…

And Cal Thomas on setting aside partisanship for the good of the country.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, October 31st. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Another wildfire whips up north of Los Angeles » Flames whipped through the parched hills north of Los Angeles on Wednesday, as strong winds fueled another outbreak of wildfires.

A brush fire erupted before dawn, and exploded to more than 1,300 acres—forcing another 26,000 people to evacuate. Ventura County Fire Incident Commander Chad Cook…

COOK: The fire outflanked us very rapidly today, pushed by those 40 to 50 mile an hour winds. We did experience gusts up to 65 miles an hour this morning.  

Helicopters and airplanes attacked the blaze from the sky, dropping fire retardant chemicals as some 800 firefighters battled it on the ground. 

The flames threatened thousands of homes and ranches and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

But Cook said they were able to defend the facility, which is partially protected by a buffer zone chewed by goats. 

Other blazes continue to burn across the state, including the massive Kincade fire north of San Francisco.

Lawmakers press State Dept. officials on Ukraine » A State Department Foreign Service officer told lawmakers Wednesday that former national security adviser John Bolton cautioned him about Rudy Giuliani. WORLD Radio’s Leigh Jones has details. 

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: House lawmakers questioned Christopher Anderson as part of the impeachment inquiry. He said Bolton told him that the president’s personal lawyer “was a key voice with the president on Ukraine” and could complicate U.S. goals in the country.

Another Foreign Service officer, Catherine Croft, also testified behind closed doors Wednesday. 

Meanwhile, the No. 2 official at the State Department faced tough questions in the Senate. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan is President Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Russia. In his confirmation hearing, he said he did not know of any attempt to press Ukraine to open a corruption probe into Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.

Reporting for WORLD Radio, I’m Leigh Jones. 

White House hopes to sign “phase one” of China trade deal next month » The White House says it wants to sign the first phase of a new China trade deal next month. President Trump said this week that negotiators were—quote—“ahead of schedule” as they work to accomplish at least some of the administration’s trade objectives with China. 

TRUMP: We’ll call it phase one, but it’s a very big portion. It would take care of the farmers. It would take care of some of the other things. It will also take care of a lot of the banking needs. 

The president had planned to travel to Santiago, Chile, in November to sign the preliminary deal with China’s Xi Jinping. But Chile’s president announced Wednesday that he’s cancelling the summit amid nationwide protests in his country over economic inequality.

The White House said the two sides may pick a new host city.

NCAA to let athletes profit … but how? » The NCAA and its member schools are facing a new challenge this week after voting to let college athletes profit from their fame. WORLD Radio’s Kristen Flavin has more. 

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: The National College Athletic Association has voted to let college athletes—quote—“benefit from the use of their name, image and likeness.”

The move came after California passed a law that would make it illegal for NCAA not to allow that.

But now officials have to figure out how to allow athletes to profit while still maintaining rules regarding amateurism.

Among the questions they’re still trying to answer: What regulations should it put in place? What markets should athletes be allowed to access? And should schools themselves be able to provide funds to athletes through licensing deals?

Many worry the influx of cash will open the door to corruption and that college recruiters will dangle lucrative sponsorships in front of athletes.

Reporting for WORLD Radio, I’m Kristen Flavin. 

Nats down Astros win first World Series in franchise history » AUDIO: [Sound of celebration]

For the very first time, the Washington Nationals are celebrating a World Series championship!

AUDIO: [Sound of celebration]

The Nats beat the Astros in game-7 in Houston last night in dramatic fashion. Washington trailed for the first 6 innings, but took a 3-2 lead with one swing of the bat from designated hitter Howie Kendrick. 

GAME: That’s down the right field line into the corner. This ball is … gone for a homerun! 

The Nats added 3 more runs and held on for a 6-2 win.

This was the first World Series appearance in franchise history dating back a half-century. The team entered the league in 1969 as the Montreal Expos. They changed their name and moved to Washington in 2005.

And this was the first 7-game series in big league history in which the road team won every game.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: ministering to victims of the Dallas tornados. Plus, the genetics of giant pumpkins. This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD: It’s Thursday the 31st of October, 2019. Thank you for listening to The World and Everything in It. Good morning to you. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up, recovering from natural disaster.

Nearly two weeks ago, a series of tornadoes ravaged the Dallas metro area. The twisters destroyed dozens of homes and businesses.  Estimated damages have reached the $2 billion mark.

REICHARD: It’s remarkable that there were no fatalities. But recovering from the physical devastation will take effort over time.

WORLD correspondent Katie Gaultney brings us the story of how Dallas Christians are rallying to support a congregation whose church building took a direct hit—And how that church, in turn, is helping others.

WOMACK: This is the back of the sanctuary. So this is where, um, the pastor would be, this is where our choir would be…

KATIE GAULTNEY, REPORTER: Josh Womack has worshipped at Northway Church in Dallas for the better part of a decade. Now, he’s standing where the church sanctuary stood just a week ago… What looks like a bombed-out shell is all that remains.

WOMACK: Some of the bricks have been torn off, but pretty much all the glass on the back end is gone and their roof, um, on the back end, most of the roof has gone as well. … They’ve got to take, I think, the whole thing down.

Northway has hosted decades of baptisms, weddings, and worship gatherings. The Sunday night service had wrapped up just a couple hours before the tornado struck.

WOMACK: So just kind of amazing that literally we had people standing right here where I’m in the chapel where, you know, it’s obviously demolished, uh, and, and you can see the glass missing and the large wood pieces missing from the top that I can’t imagine what was going on inside there when it hit, but just what a blessing that literally no people were inside there to, to receive the brunt of that.

As soon as the tornado threat passed, Northway’s pastor, Shea Sumlin, jumped in his Jeep to survey the damage. The devastation was clear immediately.

SUMLIN: It looked like a war zone. All the power’s out, it’s dark. All you could hear is chainsaws and tears. And then there’s gas lines going off. You could smell the gas … and I couldn’t really see the damage from the angle… I had to walk around the side and then just a giant gaping hole in our sanctuary and, uh, water. Not only the water from the rain, but the water from our sprinkler systems inside the building were just broken and they were just dumping water everywhere and it was just, it was just awful. So it was just immediate shock.

Then Sumlin looked across the street. The public middle and high school directly facing the church were destroyed. The Mexican Baptist church behind Northway was completely flattened. And many homes in the surrounding neighborhood are just piles of brick and timber.

SUMLIN: So number one was how can we minister to the brokenness around us? Uh, number two was how can we secure our building in the meantime to all the danger spots that were part of it? And then number three was we need to send some folks out and start figuring out what our future is.

Northway’s insurance will cover the bulk of necessary repairs, as well as funds to lease a church space during the 18 months it will take to reconstruct the church. But the church is in an economically diverse area. It will be harder for some of its neighbors to rebuild.

SUMLIN: You can go out one door, go out to the east door of our church, and you can throw a rock and you’re hitting some of the wealthiest homes in all of Dallas, like Mark Cuban lives there and Dirk Nowitzki. And you can go out the other side of our door, through our west side. You can throw a rock and you’re hitting some of the most impoverished people in all of Dallas. That has been the primary target for us is, “How can we serve those needs?”

Right away, nearby Watermark Church offered up its facilities for Northway to host its Sunday night service through the end of the year. That church’s pastor, Todd Wagner, said when people or churches are facing trauma, it’s the capital-C Church’s job to step up.

WAGNER: We knew that would strengthen them to do what we know is their primary desire, which is to serve other people…. It’s a good lesson for all of us. You can’t serve other people if you’re not in a healthy place. So we saw an opportunity to restore some health in an area of real need for them so they could keep their focus where it needs to be. 

And that’s exactly what Northway is doing. With insurance covering the clean-up and repairs, and a temporary meeting space in hand, the church started raising money to help its neighbors recover. It’s collected over $150,000 in a week. That will all go to the surrounding community.

And church members are now going door to door in the neighborhood to see what needs they can meet. They gathered Saturday morning with tools, supplies, and food, ready to help.

SUMLIN: And then, and then there was even one point when we ran out of supplies that we needed and we put a social media post out, and within 19 minutes we had everything that we needed for hundreds and hundreds of families in the neighborhood.

Today, Northway’s worshipers fill an unfamiliar building. The choir lines up on a new stage. Volunteers get their bearings in children’s classrooms they haven’t set foot in before today. It will be a long time before they’re back “home.” But Pastor Sumlin said that emphasizes a spiritual reality.

SUMLIN: Again, it’s just a building and we’ve been just chanting this all week. The church is not a building, it’s a people. We know that cognitively, but effectively it becomes a very visceral reality that it really is. And there’s beauty in that of getting to rest in that.

For WORLD Radio, I’m Katie Gaultney reporting from Dallas, Texas.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: fighting in Syria.

It’s been almost four weeks since U.S. forces cleared out, followed by Turkey’s invasion. Last week, Ankara agreed to a ceasefire in a 19-mile wide zone that separates Syria from Turkey. But residents of Kurdish and Christian villages in the area say the bombing campaigns never stopped.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Dave Eubank is with Free Burma Rangers. It’s a humanitarian aid organization that works with pro-democracy groups in conflict zones around the world. Its medics have served alongside soldiers fighting ISIS in Iraq, as well as the final assault against the militant group in Syria earlier this year. It’s now providing relief and emergency medical care to people fleeing Turkey’s advance.

Dave Eubank joins us now with an update from the front lines.

Thanks for joining us today.

DAVE EUBANK, GUEST: Thank you, everyone at WORLD Magazine. I’ve been reading it for 10 years, I think, and it always educates and inspires me and I’m glad to be part of this. Glad you’re putting a light on the world.

REICHARD: Dave, let’s start with the ceasefire that we’ve heard so much about. You’ve made it really clear in your field reports that the Turkish offensive never stopped. Tell us what you’ve seen in the last week or so.

EUBANK: No, it hasn’t stopped. We’ve been here about two and a half weeks, right pretty much after the U.S. broke our promise and pulled out. And immediately the Free Syrian Army, the Syrian National Army, whatever they’re calling themselves, its proxies—the Turks—and the Turks invaded. And there’s not been any ceasefire even though there were two of them that were stated. There hasn’t been a day that we haven’t experienced the Free Syrian Army attacks with Turkish artillery and daily airstrikes from drones. The Turks and the Free Syrian Army are about 8 kilometers—or 5 miles—from where we are now.

REICHARD: I understand that the people fleeing violence there are calling this corridor along the border the “genocide zone.” Explain why that is.

EUBANK: Well, it’s a genocide zone because if you stay—especially if you’re a Kurd or a Christian—you’re going to die. That’s what they’ve experienced in the past and that’s what they firmly believe. So they fled. And they call it a genocide zone and I think that’s accurate. I think you could also call it ethnic cleansing zone. You could call it Turkish Invasion Zone. You can call it anything but a safe zone which is the most horrible, disingenuous—it’s worse than insulting because people are dying in it. Tonight, we evacuated two wounded and two dead and another person just died. They asked us to go pick them up, which means we have to go back up to the front lines and wiggle around at night. The last met ambulance, the enemy fired four RPG rounds at it. Four rockets and just missed it. And every time we try to move our vehicles to rescue our people, they’re going to shoot at you.

REICHARD: This is a complicated situation. Groups that were once fighting each other are now allied in the fight against a common enemy. So your medics have helped Syrian Army forces fighting alongside the Kurds, right? Tell us about that.

EUBANK: Well, when the uprising as Assad started, there was many rank and file normal people who stood up against Assad. They very soon became eclipsed by the different jihadist groups, such as al-Qaeda, al-Nusura, and then later ISIS. But in the eastern part of the country, the Kurds rose up and made a deal with Assad saying, look, we’re going to fight this eastern side—the eastern Euphrates—for you. In return, we want autonomy. Assad said fine. You do whatever you want. Just don’t let ISIS take over. Once the Americans pulled out, instantly the Kurds knew they would be slaughtered and their only hope was that the Syrian army would come in, which means the Kurds would trade away a lot of autonomy, a lot of their hard-won gains and freedoms, but to them, better than being slaughtered.

So the Syrian army shows up, but they thought they had a deal with the Turks that once they showed up, the Russians had brokered a deal saying that, ok, once the Syrians come, the Kurds will pull back the heavy weapons and the military, then the Turks will go back to the original border, the Syrians still occupy it, the Russians will run the interference in the middle. But what happened was they were instantly attacked by the Turks and the Free Syrian Army with tanks and artillery and drones. And the Syrians, thinking they had deal, came up with no armor. Just machine guns. And they’ve been steadily pushed back and slaughtered. I talked to a Syrian commander while we were treating his wounds and he was so frustrated. He said they sent us here to die. We thought we had an agreement in our own country the Turks wouldn’t keep attacking once we came. But that’s not the case.

And tonight as we were bringing the wounded back, we saw hundreds of Syrian troops lining the side of the road in retreat.

REICHARD: Final question, President Trump’s decision to bring American troops home from that area is something you and many others strongly oppose. But you say there’s a way forward, one that involves compromise with all sides. What do you mean by that?

EUBANK: Well, before I say that, I’m going to say this prayer, Lord Jesus, please help our president do the best and right thing right now and all of us do our part. In your name, Amen. It’s a tragic situation but I think the way forward, the first thing is to say we’re sorry. We made a big mistake. We’re sorry. Let’s start again. So we need to say we’re sorry for that and we need to say that we’re going to bring our troops back and we’re going to negotiate with the Syrian’s army and the Turks, who have legitimate concerns, and our allies and the Russians. And, most of all, with the Kurds and the Christians and the Muslims who actually live here, and say the safe zone will once again be the international border between Turkey and Syria and we will figure out a mechanism where there’s joint patrols of Russians, Americans, and Turks—whatever it takes—on that line. And everybody will go home to their original homes—but to negotiate with strength to push the border back where it belongs.

REICHARD: Straight talk. Dave Eubank is with Free Burma Rangers in Northern Syria. Thanks so much for joining us today.

EUBANK: Alright, God bless you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: You know that awful feeling you get when you realize you’ve left behind something really important or valuable? You step out of the cab, it pulls away from the curb, and then the realization is upon you. 

You left it in the cab!

There’s no point running. You’re not going to catch him.

Well, consider this story from Seoul, South Korea: a passenger left behind more than $100,000: $86,000 in cash. Another $17,000 in checks!  And a cell phone.

The passenger went to the police and told his story, the police called the cell phone, the cabbie answered, said I’ve got it right here, and within 10 minutes brought it all back.

This cabbie, Lee Jun-young, has been driving since 2015 and he’s a known quantity. The National Taxi Association said the mayor of Seoul has previously recognized Lee for his integrity, and for returning countless lost items, including mobile phones.

Lee says he’s returned sums of more than $3,000 to customers in the past. This return, clearly his biggest ever.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Thursday, October 31st. You’re listening to The World and Everything in It and we thank you for that! Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Circleville, Ohio is a small town where pumpkins are a really big deal. They’re also really, REALLY big.

The farming community hosts a pumpkin growing competition every year, ending with a carnival. In a town of only 12,000 people, that event attracts more than 400,000 visitors.

EICHER: WORLD Radio’s Maria Baer tracked down a veteran pumpkin farmer in early fall to follow his quest for this year’s pumpkin crown.

LIGGETT: This was built in 1844, this house…

MARIA BAER, REPORTER: My first visit to Dr. Bob Liggett’s pumpkin patch was in mid-September. The temperature was still slogging around in the 80s. For Circleville’s champion pumpkin-growers, that was just splendid. 

LIGGETT: The weather right now is ideal. 85 degrees, and it’s not too cold at night, so I think they’ll keep growing at least 10 pounds a day….

Liggett is a geneticist. Well, actually, he’s an optometrist, with his own practice downtown. But when it comes to growing pumpkins, he’s more like a mad scientist.

LIGGETT: We use little bamboo sticks, and make the side vines go perpendicular…

It’s impossible to overstate how big a deal the pumpkin show is here in Circleville. The town’s water tower is painted, year-round, to look like a giant orange pumpkin.

And Liggett is king of the patch.

LIGGETT: We have won 12 times…

Liggett and his wife, Jo, started growing pumpkins nearly 30 years ago at their farmhouse on the edge of town. Each year, his pumpkins get bigger. This year’s contender, named Zeta, is no different.

LIGGETT: It looks to me like it’s gonna be a nice pumpkin…

The first time I see her, Zeta the Pumpkin is sitting under a queen-sized bedsheet in the corner of a leafy green pumpkin patch. She’s surrounded by a complicated-looking sprinkler system and a silver-tinted fence, which Liggett says keeps out the westerly winds. 

It’s only September, but she’s huge. Like, “I-could-carve-her-out-and-sleep-inside -of-her” huge. And she’s all alone—despite the roughly 3,500 square feet of vines, Zeta is one of only three pumpkins growing in this patch.

Liggett explains that’s because her neighbors have all been plucked. Each time a new pumpkin fruits on the vine, he cuts it away, ensuring that its nutrients go directly to Zeta. 

LIGGETT: So if I don’t cut that out, in a week, that will be a pumpkin and it will break down the producers. The way – oh, look at that one in there, I missed that one!

Liggett’s first winning pumpkin in 1996 weighed 628 pounds. That sounds big, but his most recent winner in 2016 was nearly three times that size. Liggett said that’s all due to genetics.

LIGGETT: Actually, this one came from last year’s world record. 2,528 I think it  was. 

Pumpkin growers trade and sell their seeds and then pollinate their plants with other big pumpkins. Last Christmas, Liggett’s son reached out to the 2018 record-winner and requested a few seeds. He gave those seeds to his dad as a Christmas gift. 

LIGGETT: Let’s walk out this way…

Liggett pollinated that seedling with his own 2016 winner, and here she is: Zeta, a designer pumpkin with record-winning parents.

Liggett approaches her protection with equal zeal.

LIGGETT: The sheet does a couple things. It tends to not let the pumpkin get real hot when the sun shines on it. And of course this helps, too…

Still, there’s a lot that could go wrong. The heat could cause her to split. Critters could nibble at her. When Liggett and his crew attempt to lift her onto a trailer next month, they could discover a fungus underneath. They might find a family of mice living there. They could drop her! All of those things have happened before. But for now, we wait.

A month later, I’m back at the patch. The Liggetts host a party for friends and neighbors each year on the night of the Great Pumpkin Lift. There’s a crowd gathered, but no one’s speaking above a whisper. The sun is slowly setting. Liggett and a few friends are strapping a harness to Zeta. That’s connected to a forklift.

AUDIO: [Sound of equipment beeping]

BAER: Ok it’s off the ground, and the guys are crawling on the ground to try and check underneath it…

CROWD: WOOHOO!

Zeta looks good. She makes it to the trailer, safe and ready for the trip downtown for the weigh-in.

Today, it’s perfectly overcast with just a slight chill in the air―sweater weather at last―and the Pumpkin Show is in full swing. 

AUDIO: Happy Pumpkin Show! Happy Pumpkin Show! (laughter)

There, just outside the courthouse, I find her. Sitting regally atop a long trailer, surrounded by other huge pumpkins, is Zeta, adorned with a crown. Her weight, 1,421.5 pounds, is painted on her side in bright colors. She’s Liggett’s 13th first-prize win.

BOY: It cannot be real! It can’t be real.

There’s a line forming to get a photo with her.

BYSTANDER: Ready one, two three, cheese!

A few days from now, Zeta will star in the Saturday night parade through town before she’ll return to the Liggetts. Liggett says he’ll give her to one of his children to display in front of their house for trick-or-treat. After that, he’ll need a hand saw. But he’ll save the seeds, you can be sure; and maybe Zeta junior will tip the scales next year.

For WORLD Radio, I’m Maria Baer, reporting from Circleville, Ohio.

MARY REICHARD: Next up on The World and Everything in It: an excerpt from Listening In. This week, a conversation with author and New York Times columnist Ross Douthat.

NICK EICHER: Douthat believes we have become a nation of “heretics.” That while many people in America still embrace a form of cultural Christianity, many false ideas distort the truth. Or to put it in Biblical language: religion that has the appearance of godliness, but denies its power.

WARREN SMITH:  Today we have a secular left that says: “religion is bad” and a theocratic right that says, we were some form of a Christian nation or we need to be fighting for, restoring a Christian nation. And then you say though, that the problem isn’t that America has too much or too little religion, but the problem is that we have a bad religion. 

DOUTHAT: I think that’s, that is the core argument, right? I mean, I think this, you know, a lot of shifts in American culture just over the last seven or eight years. The continued decline of marriage, the decline of the birth rate, the, you know, the rise of sort of depths of despair and suicide and teen depression and so on. All of those, I think, you know, they represent a lot of different things, but one of them I think is the insufficiency of the kind of religion that predominates in the U-S. 

And I think the one thing that is true now that maybe wasn’t as true when I was writing is that it’s easier to see, a sort of fully post-Christian landscape at the edges of our national life. 

Right? So I do still think it’s true that basically we’re a Christ haunted country and basically liberal politics and conservative politics are both informed by Christian ideas. But if you go out to, you know, the alt-right and portions of the social justice left, I think you get far away enough from Christianity that you begin, where instead of heresy, just saying it’s post-Christian makes a little more sense. That at a certain point the link to historic Christianity just thins out to a point where it doesn’t make sense to emphasize it anymore.

NICK EICHER: Today is Thursday, October 31st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. Commentator Cal Thomas now with his thoughts on the death of the world’s leading terrorist.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: Only extreme partisans could deny President Trump any credit for the operation that resulted in the death of terrorist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. 

Apparently House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is one of them. She praised the “heroism” of the special unit that conducted the raid but could not bring herself to say anything nice about the president. Instead, she complained she and other House leaders didn’t have advance notice. 

Kudos to Senator Amy Klobuchar, who is running for president. She told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the president’s decision was a “good one.” She even acknowledged without rancor that it could benefit him politically.

More pundits and politicians should understand how to separate political differences from an existential threat, like ISIS. 

Some commentators keep referring to al-Baghdadi’s “ideology.” But it was more than that. Communism is an ideology. Fascism is an ideology. 

What motivated al-Baghdadi and other ISIS fighters was religion. When one believes he is on “a mission from God,” there is little to stop him, other than death. 

Radical Islamists believe their death in fighting us “infidels” is a guaranteed ticket to Heaven. How does one deter that, other than by helping them punch their ticket?

Radical Islam is a virus. It is not contained within borders. It does not have a capital that can be bombed. That is why its evil nature must always be exposed and its goals thwarted. 

Yes, others will sign up and current ISIS members will likely be even more motivated by revenge. Still, others may see al-Baghdadi’s demise and either decline to join or be motivated to quit. 

We now know that’s what led to al-Baghdadi’s death: a defector in his inner circle led U.S. troops to the hideout. Hopefully the $25 million bounty that man earned will inspire others to change sides. 

Freedom is never cheap or easy. We must remain vigilant—and thankfully, our military was in this case. 

Thinking about their flawless operation brings to mind Lord Byron’s classic poem, “The Destruction of Sennacherib.” It includes this line: 

“For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;

And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still!”

Our troops deserve praise, as does the president. There will be more terrorist leaders, but at least this one has bitten the dust.

For WORLD Radio, I’m Cal Thomas.

NICK EICHER: Culture Friday’s tomorrow. We’ll talk about what everybody seems to be talking about and that’s the new gospel album by Kanye West.

And Megan Basham reviews the new biopic about abolitionist Harriet Tubman.

That and more tomorrow. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD: 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 book of Hebrews advises us to consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, and to encourage one another.

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.