The World and Everything in It: October 9, 202

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Blowing up boats used by drug cartels may be effective, but is it legal? Views differ.

HAWLEY: If Thomas Jefferson can activate the military against pirates, I'm not sure how this is any different.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Also today, mail-order abortion drugs are leading to a rise in crimes against pregnant women.

And the heart of an artisan.

HANNAH: You have two hands, you can make so much in a day and not more. And there's also a beauty in that,

And WORLD commentator Cal Thomas weighs in on so-called “conversion therapy.”

BROWN: It’s Thursday, October 9th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. Good morning!

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR:  Shutdown latest / back pay » Another day, another failed funding vote in the US Senate, as the government remains partially shut down.

SOUND (vote count):  On this vote, the A's are 54. The nays are 45. Three fifths of the Senate is duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to.

Republicans once again trying to pass a clean bill that would restore and extend the funding levels that were already in place before the shutdown with no changes.

But they cannot get to the 60-vote threshold in the Senate without help from Democrats. And Democratic leaders say that won’t happen until Republicans agree to add healthcare policy changes to the bill.

Meantime, House Speaker Mike Johnson made clear Wednesday that he believes all furloughed federal workers should be paid for any time missed once the government reopens.

JOHNSON:  It has always been the case that is tradition and I think it is statutory law that federal employees be, be paid, and that's my position. I think they, they should be.

President Trump suggested recently that some furloughed workers might not receive back pay

Shutdown flight delays » And the shutdown is being felt in airports across the country.

Air traffic controllers, since Monday, have been working without pay, at least for now. And some have seemingly felt less motivated to show up.

A surge in controllers calling out sick has led to thousands of flight delays this week.

In fact, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says a majority of flights are now running behind.

DUFFY: In the last couple of days, it’s been 53%. And so my message to the air traffic controllers that work for DOT is, show up for work! You have a job to do.

Essential employees are still expected to work amid the shutdown and they are assured backpay.

The National Air Traffic Controllers union also called on aviation workers to take their public safety responsibility seriously and continue staffing towers amid the shutdown.

Comey pleads not guilty » Former FBI Director James Comey says he is not guilty of lying to Congress. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher reports:

BENJAMIN EICHER: Comey entered his plea in a federal court in Virginia Wednesday.

Prosecutors say Comey authorized leaks to the media about the Russia probe and then lied about that under oath during a 2020 Senate hearing.

His legal team says the former FBI director is the target of a political prosecution orchestrated by President Trump.

And they’ll argue that the acting U.S. attorney overseeing the case was illegally appointed after her predecessor declined to bring charges.

The indictment follows public calls from Trump for the Justice Dept to investigate Comey.

The president fired him as head of the FBI in 2017. Since then, Comey has been an outspoken Trump critic.

His trial is set for January 5th.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher.

Palisades fire arrest » Authorities have charged a California man with igniting the most destructive fire in the history of Los Angeles.

ATF Special Agent Kenny Cooper:  

COOPER: After more than eight months of tireless, meticulous work, I stand here with our partners proud to announce an arrest in connection to the devastating Palisade fires.

Authorities have charged 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht with igniting the January fire. And federal prosecutor Bill Essayli says the government intends to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he started the fire intentionally.

ESSAYLI:  As the world watched in horror as the Palisades fire burned, victims perished in the smoke and flames, homes were cherished. Family memories and belongings were turned to rubble and ash.

The suspect faces charges including malicious destruction.

The blaze killed 12 people and destroyed more than 6,000 homes and buildings in the wealthy coastal neighborhood of LA.

Investigators declined to say how they believe the suspect started the fire.

EU chief: Russia grey zone campaign » The European Union says Russia is conducting a—quote—"targeted gray zone campaign" against Europe.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says that has included violations of European, and even NATO, airspace by Russian drones and aircraft.

LEYEN:  One incident may be a mistake, two incidents, a coincidence, but 3, 5, 10. This is a deliberate and targeted gray zone campaign against Europe.

She said that campaign has also included acts of sabotage and cyberattacks.

And she added, “if we hesitate to act, the gray zone will only expand.”

LEYEN:  Europe must respond. We must investigate every incident, and we must not shy away from attributing responsibility.

Von der Leyen stresses the need for an affordable anti-drone system and is urging greater European investment in defense.

Haiti displaced children » A growing crisis in Haiti.

A new United Nations report finds that amid rampant gang violence, the number of Haitian children displaced there has nearly doubled to almost 700,000.

UNICEF warns that minors are increasingly facing hunger, violence and recruitment by armed groups.

The report says half of the country’s population is in need of humanitarian assistance, that’s about 6 million people. The figure includes almost three-and-a-half million kids.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: the war on drugs takes a new turn. Plus, making a living as an artisan.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday, the 9th of October.

This is WORLD Radio and we thank you for joining us today! Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

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

Up first, blowing up Venezuelan drug boats.

Last week, the Department of War confirmed it used lethal force against a vessel off the coast of Venezuela, the fourth reported airstrike since early September.

BROWN: President Trump has said the U.S. is at war with drug cartels, but is Congress on board?

World’s Carolina Lumetta has the story.

LAUREN CANTERBERRY: Police in Bloomington, Illinois, responded to a home in August after a call about a medical emergency. When officers arrived they found a woman crying in a bathroom. She was sitting in a pool of blood next to the remains of her tiny baby.

She had been about seven weeks pregnant. And she said her boyfriend gave her abortion drugs without her knowledge after she refused to kill their child. The boyfriend later admitted to police that he bought the pills from another woman and claimed his girlfriend knew he was giving her the deadly drugs.

Authorities charged the 31 year old with two counts of intentional homicide of an unborn child.

KELSEY PRITCHARD: Abortion drug poisoning is a new form of domestic violence that’s on the rise.

Kelsey Pritchard is the political communications director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. She says that men have coerced or tricked women into abortions for years. But since the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol became easier to buy online, the group has seen the problem get worse.

PRITCHARD: The way that these drugs have just been almost completely unregulated is just enabling that abuse. We’ve seen a case or two of a woman getting them to poison another woman. So this is something we should all care about.

Under the Biden administration, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2021 removed any requirements for in-person visits to obtain abortion drugs. Two years later, the administration allowed retail pharmacies to dispense mifepristone directly to women. Online groups started shipping them in record numbers…even into pro-life states. These changes are still in effect.

Earlier this summer, former Planned Parenthood center director and now pro-life activist Abby Johnson posted a video online showing how easy it was for her to order the pills. Johnson lives in Texas, where most babies are protected from abortion, but she still got the drugs in a few short days without proving who she was.

JOHNSON: I didn’t put in the correct date of birth. I wasn’t asked for an ID. I could have put in any information I wanted, because I was never asked for any sort of verification.

Johnson ordered the drugs from the European abortion pill company Aid Access. In August, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that more than 80% of Aid Access’ abortion drug shipments went to states with pro-life laws.

Texas is trying to shut off the supply. Last month, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a measure allowing private citizens to sue individuals and organizations that ship abortion drugs into the state.

Meanwhile, Texas resident Liana Davis in August brought a federal lawsuit against Aid Access, its founder Rebecca Gomperts, and Davis’ former boyfriend, Christopher Cooprider. Davis claims they committed felony murder and violated the federal Comstock Act, which prohibits mailing abortion-inducing drugs. Davis says her unborn baby died in April after Cooprider allegedly dissolved abortion drugs into her drink. According to court documents, Cooprider bought the drugs online using his own name, though he denies all allegations.

Heritage Foundation visiting fellow Melanie Israel says the federal government must intervene to regulate the deadly drugs.

ISRAEL: If the FDA could step in and at the very least return to that in-person dispensing requirement, it wouldn’t fix all of the issues but it sure would fix a lot.

Melanie Israel says in-person visits could also help identify women who are being trafficked or who are in abusive relationships. Abortion facilities, OB-GYNs, and pro-life pregnancy centers often report such cases, but mail-order abortion pills make it easier for abusers to hide their crimes.

ISRAEL: For many women, that is the only lifeline they get.

Prosecuting cases of forced or coerced abortions can be difficult if a woman does not know for sure if she miscarried or was given abortion drugs without her consent.

ISRAEL: I think a lot of these women suspect something because their partner had been so insistent they get it beforehand.

A patchwork of laws across the country complicates litigating cases of coerced or forced abortion. Some states recognize the personhood of unborn children, while others do not.

Often, the biggest challenge to bringing cases forward is that women are afraid to speak out. Here’s Mary Browning, legal adviser to Operation Outcry with the Justice Foundation.

BROWNING: Part of the battle here is to get the truth out so that women that are out there suffering in silence … they feel like they have a place that they can turn to, that they can speak up, that they won't be shunned or judged or criticized. There are a number of people that are willing to bring the lawsuits if the women will come forward.

Browning says that, at the very least, forcing a woman to have an abortion against her will should be considered assault. She says women who are forced to abort their babies face deep, complex pain. While they are mourning their child’s death, they are also coming to terms with the loss of safety they once felt in their relationship.

BROWNING: There's this mixture of the sense of betrayal, the sense of having a trust violated, and then the confusion of loving someone and coming to grips with the fact that they would do something like this. There's significant importance to getting healing in the aftermath of abortion, no matter how you came to that place.

For WORLD, I’m Lauren Canterberry.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: coerced abortions.

Abortion pills now account for about two-thirds of all abortions in the U-S. By late 2023, nearly one in five occurred without in-person contact with a medical professional.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Pro-life advocates warn that this easy access is fueling more cases of coercion and abuse, crimes against women and their unborn children. WORLD’s Lauren Canterberry brings us this report.

LAUREN CANTERBERRY: Police in Bloomington, Illinois, responded to a home in August after a call about a medical emergency. When officers arrived they found a woman crying in a bathroom. She was sitting in a pool of blood next to the remains of her tiny baby.

She had been about seven weeks pregnant. And she said her boyfriend gave her abortion drugs without her knowledge after she refused to kill their child. The boyfriend later admitted to police that he bought the pills from another woman and claimed his girlfriend knew he was giving her the deadly drugs.

Authorities charged the 31 year old with two counts of intentional homicide of an unborn child.

KELSEY PRITCHARD: Abortion drug poisoning is a new form of domestic violence that’s on the rise.

Kelsey Pritchard is the political communications director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. She says that men have coerced or tricked women into abortions for years. But since the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol became easier to buy online, the group has seen the problem get worse.

PRITCHARD: The way that these drugs have just been almost completely unregulated is just enabling that abuse. We’ve seen a case or two of a woman getting them to poison another woman. So this is something we should all care about.

Under the Biden administration, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2021 removed any requirements for in-person visits to obtain abortion drugs. Two years later, the administration allowed retail pharmacies to dispense mifepristone directly to women. Online groups started shipping them in record numbers…even into pro-life states. These changes are still in effect.

Earlier this summer, former Planned Parenthood center director and now pro-life activist Abby Johnson posted a video online showing how easy it was for her to order the pills. Johnson lives in Texas, where most babies are protected from abortion, but she still got the drugs in a few short days without proving who she was.

JOHNSON: I didn’t put in the correct date of birth. I wasn’t asked for an ID. I could have put in any information I wanted, because I was never asked for any sort of verification.

Johnson ordered the drugs from the European abortion pill company Aid Access. In August, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that more than 80% of Aid Access’ abortion drug shipments went to states with pro-life laws.

Texas is trying to shut off the supply. Last month, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a measure allowing private citizens to sue individuals and organizations that ship abortion drugs into the state.

Meanwhile, Texas resident Liana Davis in August brought a federal lawsuit against Aid Access, its founder Rebecca Gomperts, and Davis’ former boyfriend, Christopher Cooprider. Davis claims they committed felony murder and violated the federal Comstock Act, which prohibits mailing abortion-inducing drugs. Davis says her unborn baby died in April after Cooprider allegedly dissolved abortion drugs into her drink. According to court documents, Cooprider bought the drugs online using his own name, though he denies all allegations.

Heritage Foundation visiting fellow Melanie Israel says the federal government must intervene to regulate the deadly drugs.

ISRAEL: If the FDA could step in and at the very least return to that in-person dispensing requirement, it wouldn’t fix all of the issues but it sure would fix a lot.

Melanie Israel says in-person visits could also help identify women who are being trafficked or who are in abusive relationships. Abortion facilities, OB-GYNs, and pro-life pregnancy centers often report such cases, but mail-order abortion pills make it easier for abusers to hide their crimes.

ISRAEL: For many women, that is the only lifeline they get.

Prosecuting cases of forced or coerced abortions can be difficult if a woman does not know for sure if she miscarried or was given abortion drugs without her consent.

ISRAEL: I think a lot of these women suspect something because their partner had been so insistent they get it beforehand.

A patchwork of laws across the country complicates litigating cases of coerced or forced abortion. Some states recognize the personhood of unborn children, while others do not.

Often, the biggest challenge to bringing cases forward is that women are afraid to speak out. Here’s Mary Browning, legal adviser to Operation Outcry with the Justice Foundation.

BROWNING: Part of the battle here is to get the truth out so that women that are out there suffering in silence … they feel like they have a place that they can turn to, that they can speak up, that they won't be shunned or judged or criticized. There are a number of people that are willing to bring the lawsuits if the women will come forward.

Browning says that, at the very least, forcing a woman to have an abortion against her will should be considered assault. She says women who are forced to abort their babies face deep, complex pain. While they are mourning their child’s death, they are also coming to terms with the loss of safety they once felt in their relationship.

BROWNING: There's this mixture of the sense of betrayal, the sense of having a trust violated, and then the confusion of loving someone and coming to grips with the fact that they would do something like this. There's significant importance to getting healing in the aftermath of abortion, no matter how you came to that place.

For WORLD, I’m Lauren Canterberry.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Fred Ramsdell and his wife went hiking in the Wyoming wilderness at the end of September, off grid and blissfully ignorant of the routine.

So when the couple returned to civilization this week and cell service returned? Audio from the Nobel Prize folks:

RAMSDELL: My wife’s phone blew up.

 Yeah, it did! Messages galore awaited as people were trying to notify her husband of something quite unexpected:

RAMSDELL: She started yelling and I thought there was a grizzly bear nearby. Turns out it was not a grizzly bear. She said, ‘You won the Nobel Prize!” And I said, ‘I did not!”

The immunologist helped discover the cells that keep our immune systems from attacking itself. Congratulations to him!

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Indeed! Sometimes the best calls come after you go off-grid.

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

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, October 9th.

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: working with leather in Italy.

As the world races forward toward newer and better, some people are thinking about how to keep their work slower and simpler.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy brings us this report.

FEDERICO BADIA: First I stitch this piece, which it will, you know, it's the card holder on this piece…

MARY MUNCY: Master shoe-maker and artisan Federico Badia stands at a tall work table in his shop and storefront in Orvieto, Italy. The smell of leather permeates the sunlit room. There are tools scattered across the table. Today he’s making wallets:

FEDERICO BADIA: And then, now I have to sand the edge, and then I'll stitch them, and then I'll finish the edges again with like a primary wax product, liquid and the burnisher.

The 39-year-old Badia started working with leather in his early 20s while he studied to be a draftsman, but after a few years, he realized he wanted to work with his hands. He tried shoemaking. It came naturally, but to succeed he needed training.

FEDERICO: I reached a point that something was missing in my, you know, knowledge and that's when I discovered that you need a master shoemaker that could teach you and pass down the trade.

He studied in Rome for two years before coming back to Orvieto. He opened his shop 15 years ago.

Today his worn hands move effortlessly in a mesmerizing choreography. Cutting. Punching. Stitching. As a wallet takes shape on the table, he says building a family business is a lot like making anything with leather…

FEDERICO BADIA: …it requires precision, patience, I mean, having good skills…

Across the room, Federico’s wife Hannah stands at a different work table. Their two-year-old son Edmund “helping” her.

HANNAH: You want to come push the buttons?

EDMUND: Yeah.

HANNAH: All right. Now we need to thin, trim down…

Hannah is an American who came to Italy on an exchange program about 20 years ago. She fell in love with Federicoo first, but a love of his work soon followed.

HANNAH: What we do with our bodies affects, I feel like, inevitably, the state of our souls and our hearts and so I think there is something that is valuable and engaging in the act of physical creation, which forces you to both slow down and pay attention.

Hannah is putting together one of their popular items—a small crossbody bag. She has her hands full and not just with the tools and leather.

HANNAH: All right now go sit on your stool…

Between COVID-19 and relocating it’s been a tough few years. Earlier this year Edmund broke his leg and both parents spent a lot of time taking care of him.

Normally, they’d have some finished products waiting to go on the shelf…but they’ve completely run through their stores in the past few months. Hannah is grateful for the flexibility of the work. It’s important to her to be able to take time off to care for her family, but that time away from the shop means fewer products on the shelves.

Earlier today, two people came in looking for items they would normally have in stock. One of them left with something slightly different. The other was leaving the area too quickly for Hannah to custom-make it, and left empty-handed. Hannah feels that pressure to produce, but is at peace knowing that sometimes there are more important priorities than the next project.

HANNAH: People will request things. I have like my list of orders on the board, which I have fallen radically behind on. And so there's sort of this you never really, I mean both thankfully, providentially, and also, I mean, there's never a there's never a point when there is not the next thing that it's asking to be done.

Still, the Badias do look for ways to grow their business. But like learning how to sew, there’s a bit of trial and error.

Earlier this year, Federicoo started building a social media profile for their shop, but it generated too much interest. Since it’s just the two of them, the orders soon overwhelmed them, so they stopped posting.

FEDERICO: We can’t make, you know, thousands of thousands of products every year, right? It's just impossible, and, but that's, you know, that's what it is.

But if there’s the interest, why not upscale production? Some of their processes could be mechanized.

Hannah and Federicoo admit they’d love to find ways to work faster and easier, but not at the expense of quality…

HANNAH: If one were to scale and just have things produced, even if you were teaching or overseeing or etc etc, you are no longer than doing the human size job which first caused you to fall in love with the material. And it seems like that would be a loss.

She says that attention and care imparts a kind of soul into their work. Something mass-produced items can’t replicate, so they’re committed to small runs and limited stock. They say that’s just part of the life of an artisan.

HANNAH: You, you, you live off what you can make. You have two hands, you can make so much in a day and not more. And there's also a beauty in that, because by merit of being an artisan, you are in love with material you work with, inevitably, or you aren't an artisan, and so you're engaged by it, you're enthralled by it, and it gives you great joy and pleasure.

Neither of them want to give up the feeling of leather in their hands.

FEDERICO: …you know these jobs are, you know, are real, we all need real stuff. Like, we need good poets. We need good musicians, good writers, good teachers… good artisans. I know, like, otherwise, we're just gonna become empty jars, and do you want to have that life? I don't.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, October 9th. 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. A case before the Supreme Court this week could have far-reaching consequences for Christian counselors across the country. Here’s WORLD commentator Cal Thomas.

CAL THOMAS: The central figure of the East Pediment on the Supreme Court Building is Moses with the 10 commandments. Not that most people see it as it is on the backside of the grand structure.

When the Supreme Court declared same sex marriage legal in 2015, I wondered by what standard they would use should polygamists appeal for similar rights. The question seemed far-fetched at the time…but ten years later the scenario is far from hypothetical.

We find ourselves in another “how did we get here” kind of moment. In accepting a case from Colorado Springs about whether a Christian counselor can advise minors with gender dysphoria and same sex attractions, the Supreme Court must once again weigh in on the debate between the free exercise of religion and the establishment clause in the First Amendment.

The case involves the parents of a teenager who claims to be a different gender than the one identified at birth. The Christian parents sought help from a counselor who shares their faith. But a Colorado law bans so-called “conversion therapy” for minors. The therapist, Kaley Chiles, says the law silences her and deprives young people of help. She maintains she does not try to convert anyone to her faith.

In familiar secular progressive fashion, The Washington Post found a person it identifies as a transgender man, who it says tried to commit suicide in 2010. The newspaper says that person calls conversion therapy “bad medicine.” As with abortion, the Post and other media regularly look for people who will affirm their editorial and moral point of view.

They would have done well to consult the October 2022 issue of WORLD Magazine which published an article titled: “Our voices can no longer be denied.” That article focused on de-transitioners—people who have reversed or stopped their gender transition. The story profiled three women who had gone through pharmaceutical or surgical treatments to suppress and modify their physical characteristics. They later expressed regret and remorse and changed their minds. That’s not conversion. It’s coming to one’s senses.

Conversion is something different. In some circles it’s known as “being born again.” I’ll never forget when the secular media “discovered” the phrase in 1976 when Jimmy Carter described his own transformation. True conversion happens when someone accepts Jesus Christ as Savior. That person is given the power to live a life different from the life he or she had been living.

That message goes back two thousand years yet still changes peoples’ lives today. For the law to deny a therapist or anyone else the right to share that message imposes—or one might even say “establishes”—secularism as the state religion. It denies individuals the right of choice, which is a sacred doctrine to the secularists when it comes to abortion.

So as long as there is no compulsion involved the Court should uphold the right of the therapist and strike down lower court rulings that seek to deny her constitutional rights. Those include the right to freely express her faith and that of the teen’s parents.

If the Supreme Court doesn’t recognize a standard by which truth and morality can be judged, it should remove the image of Moses, the great lawgiver, from the frieze on the back of its building.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet is back for Culture Friday.

And, Collin Garbarino reviews Tron: Ares—asking whether this four-decade-old sci-fi franchise has anything new to say about A-I.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

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

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 Psalmist writes, “The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the Lord is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.” —Verses 12 through 15 of Psalm 92.

Go now in grace and peace.

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