The World and Everything in It: September 1, 2025

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Two teachers take their school district to court over policies they say force them to lie to parents about a child’s gender dysphoria.

WEST: …which just seemed crazy. ‘Cause we’ve always partnered with parents. And we don’t want to replace parents.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Legal Docket.

Also today the Monday Moneybeat … economist David Bahnsen standing by to talk tariffs overturned, Intel invested, and turmoil at the Fed.

Later, the WORLD History Book, the 20th anniversary of deadly Hurricane Katrina.

NELSON: And just everywhere you looked, everything was destroyed.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, September 1st. 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: Up next, Mark Mellinger with today’s news.

MARK MELLINGER, NEWS ANCHOR: Putin, world leaders join Xi in China for summit » China is hosting world leaders from several countries this week, including Russian leader Vladimir Putin, working to show strength to its U.S. and Western European adversaries.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping is convening a summit of a group of six Eurasian nations called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO.

Before the summit’s official start, Xi met with India Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The two leaders agreed their countries are development partners, not rivals.

BBC China correspondent Stephen McDonnell explains the importance of that agreement.

McDONNELL: The Indian leader has come here just as the Trump Administration has whacked India with these 50 percent tariffs. So India’s looking around for other potential economic partners. And here’s China saying, ‘Well, come on. It’s about time for us to patch up our differences.’

The two leaders went on to discuss ways to strengthen trade ties.

On Wednesday, China will hold a military parade commemorating the end of World War II. Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un will be among the world leaders joining Xi to watch that parade.

Russian attacks wipe out power, Zelenskyy says Ukraine will respond » Russia launched another barrage of attacks on Ukraine over the weekend, killing at least one person and wounding dozens more.

Over the past few days, it's launched more than a thousand drones across the country, primarily striking power facilities and leaving about 60,000 households without power.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his country will respond, adding new deep strikes are being planned.

Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty says Russian leader Vladimir Putin is ordering the new attacks as a response to U.S. pressure.

HAGERTY: I think what he’s doing is responding to the pressure that President Trump is putting on him, meaning economic pressure, security pressure. And I think the options for Putin continue to narrow. Things are not going well in Russia. His economy is not doing well.

Publicly, the Kremlin says it remains interested in peace talks, though none are scheduled.

Zelenskyy says he’d like to meet again with President Trump soon, and European leaders will meet in Paris this week to discuss peace in Ukraine.

Hamas spokesperson killed by Israel » Israel has killed a longtime Hamas spokesman.

On Sunday, Israel’s defense minister announced Israeli forces killed Abu Obeida over the weekend. No comment from Hamas.

The announcement came as Israel’s security cabinet met to discuss the country’s expanding offensive in parts of Gaza to wipe out Hamas.

With ceasefire talks to end the nearly two-year-old war in Gaza at a standstill, Massachusetts Congressman Jake Auchincloss says it’s time for President Trump to have what he calls a hard conversation with Israel:

AUCHINCLOSS: Where he says ‘stop it’ in Gaza… and say ‘Solve it in Gaza’, with Arab-financed, Palestinian-led governance. The president can do that. He has that leverage.

Auchincloss talking to Fox News Sunday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he won’t end the war until Hamas is destroyed and all Hamas-held hostages are returned. Hamas says it won’t release the hostages unless its survival is guaranteed.

Flotilla leaves Barcelona to break Israeli blockade » Meantime, a flotilla of close to two dozen boats set sail Sunday from Barcelona, with the goal of reaching the shore of the Gaza Strip.

It’s the largest attempt yet to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza by sea.

The ships are carrying food, baby formula, and medical supplies. Climate activist Greta Thunberg is among those aboard the expedition.

THUNBERG: The story here is how people are being deliberately deprived of the very basic needs to survive.

Since stepping up its offensive in Gaza, Israel has limited deliveries of food and basic supplies there, and it warns humanitarian aid will soon be halted or slowed more.

But Israel rejects critics’ accusations that it’s starving people in Gaza, blaming Hamas for interruptions of aid distribution.

An earlier attempt to break the blockade in June failed, when Israel intercepted a vessel carrying Thunberg and other activists and deported them.

Minnesota church holds first Mass since school shooting » In Minneapolis, Annunciation Catholic Church held its first Sunday mass since that horrific shooting at the church’s school last week. It claimed the lives of two young students and left 18 others -15 of them students- wounded.

Reverend Dennis Zehren says he’s grateful for the outpouring of love for the Annunciation community in the days since the tragedy.

ZEHREN: When the darkness is most intense, that’s when the light of God shines all the more brightly. And we’ve been seeing that in so many ways. I have never seen such an outpouring of love. I have never been so proud of the faithful followers of Jesus.

Reverend Zehren also thanked the police, medical professionals, emergency response teams, and counselors who’ve been helping families since the shooting.

Chicago pushes back on White House crime, immigration crackdowns » After enlisting the National Guard’s help to crack down on crime in Washington, D.C., the Trump Administration says Chicago could be next.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tells CBS’s Face the Nation:

NOEM: We will continue to go after the worst of the worst across the country, like President Trump has told us to do.

But Chicago is pushing back hard. This weekend, that city’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, signed an executive order saying Chicago police will not work with the National Guard or federal agents on patrols, arrests, or immigration enforcement.

JOHNSON: We will not have our police officers, who are working hard every single day to drive down crime, deputized to do traffic stops and checkpoints for the president. We do not want to see tanks in our streets.

Johnson says he’s trying to protect the Constitutional rights of people in his city to be free from militarized immigration enforcement or National Guard deployment.

I’m Mark Mellinger.

Straight ahead on Legal Docket: when schools try to keep parents in the dark. Plus, David Bahnsen reflects on God’s intent for work.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 1st day of September, 2025. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning and happy Labor Day. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s time for Legal Docket.

Today, a fight in California that boils down to this:

Whether teachers in public schools can be forced to keep a child’s gender identity a secret from parents.

Some educators are saying that compels them to lie, and they argue it violates their faith and free speech.

REICHARD: The case could wind up at the U.S. Supreme Court … especially now that California has made secrecy the law for every public school in the state—not just this one near San Diego.

MONTAGE: “Two Escondido teachers are suing the Escondido Union School District and the California Board of Education…”/“…saying that a district policy about students’ gender, identity privacy forced them to lie.”/“The school policy prohibits teachers from revealing to parents if a student changes their gender pronouns.”/“Once a student makes known that they have a preferred name or preferred pronoun, only people with a legitimate need to know that information can be told.”

EICHER: Under the rule, parents are considered not to have a legitimate need to know. Same with the state law, sponsored by California Democrat Susan Eggman, a state senator.

EGGMAN: How dare a school district, not knowing what was going to happen to me at home, take it upon themselves to share something personal about me that I hadn’t felt comfortable sharing at home so why would the school feel compelled to do that? This bill simply says schools cannot pass policies that mandate teachers become the gender police for students.

REICHARD: For Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori West, that means the local policy they objected to is now the statewide rule.

In California, and elsewhere across the country, schools are putting policies in place that require teachers and staff to affirm whatever identity a student asserts. That could mean new names, different pronouns, and sometimes, different identities altogether—completely dependent upon who is in the room. And parents kept in the dark.

I’ve called and emailed the school district and have gotten no reply.

EICHER: But here’s what supporters say about policies like this. Not every home is safe. Not every parent will respond well to such news. California State Senator Scott Weiner.

WEINER: I admitted to myself that I was gay when I was 17… it still took me three years to tell my parents. For any LGBTQ person, it is their business and their business only when, whether, how they tell their parents.

That’s the argument: that schools need to be a safe space until students are ready to tell their families—if ever.

But two middle school teachers in Escondido, California, say it’s not the school’s business to direct educators in effect to deceive parents. They say their consciences wouldn’t allow for that.

So educators Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori West felt they had no recourse but to sue.

REICHARD: I interviewed them along with their lawyer, Paul Jonna of the Thomas More Society. Mirabelli and West have nearly 60 years of experience between them, and each has been named Teacher of the Year. Mirabelli is retired now, but as she looks back, she says she wasn’t prepared for the day the policy took effect.

MIRABELLI: I was stunned. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe that they were asking me to violate the most fundamental ethics of an educational professional of serving parents, partnering with parents, informing parents. It was untenable.

She and West asked their superiors when parents would be notified, but the district never answered.

From court documents the school district’s filed so far, though, its defenses are numerous. Among them: they claim the policy is government speech, which the school has authority to regulate. It contends the policy is neutral and generally applicable, applying across the board without singling out any religious belief. Also, individual defendants have qualified immunity from being sued. And the district also argues it doesn’t force teachers to “lie,” saying “it is not a lie to not answer a question.”

EICHER: But Elizabeth Mirabelli does see it as lying. and her experience leads her to believe that it harms the students:

MIRABELLI: I thought it was teaching children to be duplicitous, to start building a double life where they could be one persona with their friends and the adults who confirm that, and then they would go home and have a completely different story, a completely different personality shall we say with their own family and I knew from working with youth for so many years, I knew that would be confusing and it would be harmful.

Her colleague Lori West remembers it as well:

WEST: You know, the funny thing is they looked at it as we were just asking you to withhold information. In fact, they gave us a statement. If a parent was to directly ask us a question, we were to say, this was beyond the scope of this meeting.

Both of these women are Christians. For West, keeping secrets from parents was a direct violation of her faith.

WEST: We believe God created man and woman and for them to procreate and have that family and raise them up according to the Christian standards. It’s scary….Co-workers we’d known for twenty years turned nasty. It felt like an alternate universe.

REICHARD: The two teachers tried to find some middle ground. They offered to use last names in lieu of pronouns. The district allowed that, but it would not compromise when it came to keeping secrets from parents.

WEST: They needed us to lie to parents, and that was just too far.

EICHER: Feeling they had no options left, they turned to the nonprofit law firm Thomas More Society. Here’s lawyer Paul Jonna:

JONNA: it's a sort of a basic concept that lying is wrong and that we should be truthful when we speak to parents, especially teachers. So in that sense, the policy violates all the teachers first amendment rights of free exercise. it violates their free speech rights, it also violates parents’ rights under the 14th Amendment.

That argument got some traction in federal court.

Jonna points out these school policies form what one judge has already called a “trifecta of harm.”

REICHARD: In 2023, US District Judge Roger Benitez blocked the Escondido policy against Mirabelli and West while the case goes forward.

EICHER: Here’s the way Judge Benitez put it:

He said the policy harms children. Children may need parental guidance. They may need mental health care to sort out whether the issue is organic — or whether it comes from bullying or peer pressure.

He said the policy also harms parents. It deprives them of their Fourteenth Amendment right to guide and make health decisions for their children.

And he said it harms the teachers. It forces them to conceal information they believe is critical to a child’s welfare. And that, he said, violates their religious convictions.

REICHARD: It isn’t just teachers. Parents are suing too. 

One family, identified in court as Jane and John Poe, learned their daughter was identifying as a boy after she attempted suicide. Doctors told them what the school kept from them.

Jonna argues that California’s privacy defense doesn’t hold up:

JONNA: They're saying kids have privacy rights that allow them to keep something a secret from their parents that the whole school knows about. but their own parents can't find out about it while everyone else knows about it I mean, honestly it’s just a ridiculous argument on its face.

Meanwhile this past March, the Trump administration’s Department of Education opened an investigation into whether California’s policies violate FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. That guarantees parents access to their child’s educational records.

Here’s Education Secretary Linda McMahon on March 27 announcing the probe:

MCMAHON: Parents have the right to be informed about what is happening with their children in school. And so for those schools that are allowing counseling for transgendering or encouraging children without parental consent. We just cannot allow that, and we're not going to stand for it.

Jonna says that federal pressure helps his case, but it isn’t decisive.

JONNA: So the policies, by the way that we're talking about, these were mandated by the state of California, the California Department of Education. This isn't just a one-off school district. These are statewide policies. In fact, they're really nationwide.

EICHER: The case, Mirabelli v Olson, heads into a hearing later this month. The court will consider certifying the case as a class action.

California parents and teachers are watching closely.

Supporters of the policy contend that secrecy prevents harm and saves lives.

Here’s Christy Hurst testifying to the state Education Committee:

HURST: Every time a district even discusses forced outing, students are sent into crisis. This policy is destroying the fabric of my community and our district iis on track to hit $1 million in legal fees...

REICHARD: So what of the state’s argument that secrecy protects vulnerable children from rejection or abuse at home? Mirabelli and West push back on that:

WEST: There’s laws in place. Child protective services. These policies assume that parents are going to react badly. They're almost finding the parents guilty without any evidence.. We, as teachers, give parents bad news all the time. Bad grades, your kid got in a fight, your kid stole something. But we give all the information about a child to the parent… . Most of these kids have other issues like a divorce or a cancer or a death or there's something else going on in their life. And it doesn't seem like they're taking time to actually find the root causes of what's troubling these children.

These teachers say this fight isn’t only for themselves:

MIRABELLI: The battle that Lori and I are fighting is for our profession and the trust and respect for teachers and any other teacher out there who feels alone, coerced, trapped, and threatened, because they're silenced and they're marginalized, we are fighting so that we can do our jobs and do them with integrity.

The outcome here could shape policies in schools across the country. And it could still wind up at the US Supreme Court.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket!

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Time now to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen. David heads up the wealth management firm The Bahnsen Group. He is here now. Good morning, David!

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

EICHER: Well, David, late on Friday, a federal appeals court struck down President Trump’s global reciprocal tariffs. The court saying that the President had stretched his emergency powers too far. It’s going to allow the tariffs to stay in place at least through mid October, and that gives the administration some time to appeal to the Supreme Court, the White House saying that there’s real money on the line here, that unwinding these tariffs could cost billions of dollars. So while the legal fight plays out, it’s going to be status quo. But David, how do you think the markets will react? We’re not going to know, obviously, because today being a holiday, but when markets open back up, what do you expect to see?

BAHNSEN: There won’t be any response from markets about this because markets have already known that there was a very high likelihood that the appeals court would rule this way, and inevitability that they weren’t going to stay anything yet, that ultimately this is likelihood of the Supreme Court. And then I’ll do you one further for listeners, even if the Supreme Court ultimately rules that these are, in fact, unconstitutional. The White House already has contingency plans to just pivot their rationale to a different legal reasoning that would then allow a lot of these tariffs to continue in a different way.

And so I don’t think that the markets believe that there’s much likelihood of these tariffs going away quickly. Now, there are certain hiccups and uncertainties that they will generate if ultimately this is continued, but the courts ruling against the constitutional tariffs but allowing them to continue in the meantime, sort of allows this whole thing to kind of continue as it is.

I think it would be more interesting if they were ruling the way they’ve ruled legally, and then putting an end to it immediately, which I think would create a significant amount of activity, of people trying to get certain trade transactions done in a window that they believed could prove to be temporary. That’s not happening. So look, I have a hard time understanding how anyone believes this isn’t black and white based on what the Constitution says about the power to tax, but I also understand that the White House has three or four different ways they plan to pivot to keep the tariffs going. So I think that’s the path we’re headed here, and we’ll see when and how the Supreme Court takes this up.

EICHER: Well, lots of news to get through today. David, I do want to talk about the White House finalizing the deal to take that 10% equity stake in Intel using nearly $9 billion in Chips Act grants that hadn’t been paid out, it will instead be converted to stock, making the US government Intel’s largest shareholder, with even the option to buy more under certain conditions. Supporters framed that deal as a national security move. Critics call it a step to socialism.

Now you gave this the full Dividend Cafe treatment, and regular listeners are not going to be surprised where you land on the question. But what I’d like to know is, how do you distinguish between the government taking an equity stake in a company versus simply awarding contracts for things like military hardware or building roads. Isn’t it all just taxpayer money flowing to private companies? Or explain the difference between the two?

BAHNSEN: The latter is categorically different, because in the extended contract, it’s an exchange of goods and services. The government’s a customer. And so the issue of the government being a customer is the inevitability of there being different goods and services that have to be provided. And roads and military equipment are pretty good couple examples.

But of course, the former, the idea of them taking equity stakes, is problematic on a whole lot of fronts, the first one being how they’re going to pay for it, what money they’re going to use to take equity stakes. And by definition, the government has no revenue source other than taxing, and so the government is using our money. And so that means they’re supposed to represent the public good and to take an equity stake in company ABC, but not company XYZ is not in the public good.

What it means is that the government has a favorite, and then other companies that do business with ABC versus XYZ, they probably better end up having a favorite, too. Or they become exposed to potential actions, because the government, in addition to, apparently now becoming an equity owner of certain companies and not others, the government is also the regulator of all of these companies at one form or another, whether it’s just taxing authority or various agency regulatory oversight.

It should go without saying that the government has a lot of power, and that’s generally why conservatives have always believed that the government’s role in private industry ought to be minimal, because of the power the government has. They have the ability to interfere, in effect, in transactions, in ways that are really problematic, and most are understandably focused, Nick, on the funding the government’s paying for it with borrowed money. If the government had extra money sitting around to buy stock in Intel, they should instead just be reducing their debt. However, there are other issues that are really problematic too, and some of them are visible effects, and some are invisible effects.

EICHER: All right, David. Well today, Fed Governor Lisa Cook is fighting to keep her job. Last week, President Trump fired her for cause, citing his housing finance regulator, who says that he found irregularities in some mortgage applications that she made. The Wall Street Journal calling this nasty business, saying it’s lawfare and the president shouldn’t be doing it. And it’s interesting, the Journal also opposed Cook’s appointment back in the Biden years, saying she was unqualified and unfit to serve as a member of the Fed. What’s your sense of all of this? We’ve talked about the pressure he’s been putting on the Fed chairman, but this kind of seems to take the fight to a whole new level.

BAHNSEN: It does, and I think it is not interesting that the Wall Street Journal opposed her appointment, as I did, and opposes this lawfare as I do, because that, to me, is a consistent view that I don’t believe she should have been appointed, and I don’t believe that she should be removed this way. That’s not to say, Nick, that she’s not guilty of this. It’s to say that it is absolutely undoubtable that the reason for this is pretextual as a mechanism to try to force the removal, and that if she is guilty, she’s entitled to due process. I just believe that we need to do the right thing for the right reason.

And I’m not trying to say that she didn’t list two residences as her primary—you know, I have two primary residences. There are people who do. I doubt she does. I wouldn’t imagine that that’s the case here, but I have a very hard time believing that anyone actually thinks that’s the basis for the removal and that President Trump himself is very concerned about mortgage application technicalities.

So again, we have a bad Fed governor who was appointed for bad reasons, in my opinion. But, you know, I just am kind of a stickler. I really, really, really hated it when the left went after President Trump, using lawfare and going after silly things with his business record and this and that. And so I do have a hard time with it, no matter what side is doing it and for what reasons.

But really, if they are successful in getting her removed, it is a big deal, because that will mean that there are four out of seven Fed governors. You know, we’re used to thinking about the Reserve Bank presidents that make up the Federal Open Market Committee. There’s 12 there, and they vote on monetary policy. And they can’t be removed at will. They can only be removed for cause. However, the Fed governors can remove Reserve Bank presidents at will. So this would theoretically give the possibility of four, a majority of the Fed governors, being able to do something different with the Open Market Committee.

I’m really skeptical they would. I mean, it would be absolutely unprecedented. We’ve never had one removed ever, let alone a majority of them, to go change the balance of the Federal Reserve. But that’s kind of out there as a possibility, and so I’m watching it closely.

EICHER: David, really looking forward to the September 15 event in person in Houston. We find ourselves talking on Labor Day, and we’re going to be talking about work. You’re going to be talking about work. I’ll be asking you some questions, and audience members will get the opportunity to put some questions to you as well and meet you. But on this Labor Day, David, what do you want to say about the theological underpinnings of work? Just a quick meditation and what we ought to be thinking about today.

BAHNSEN: Hopefully, a lot of people are thinking about work as a blessing in their life and maybe even doing that if they don’t always like their job, not just because work is a blessing in that it provides for our daily bread. And there are people in the world who can’t find work and struggle because of that. And so all of us who have sustainable work have a blessing.

But in addition to the fact that it provides our daily bread, in our work we have something that feeds our soul, that God made us with a soul. And one of the unique elements about the way God made us is our productive capacity for work and how it feeds us, fuels us and allows us to be of service to others.

And I think that the miracle of work is that it captures more than anything else in creation, that which we share as image bearers of God. That God was a creator, and he made us to be creators, to go build things, do things, make things. Work is a blessing in every spiritual and material sense, and it really captures the totality of the human person and God’s creative design for our lives.

EICHER: Well, seats are filling up, and if you have interest at all, you better head to wng.org/theworldstage and reserve your spot today. No charge for this. But again, space is limited, and as I say, filling up quickly. Two weeks from tonight, September 15, you get to meet David Bahnsen taking to the WORLD Stage. And we’ll put a link to the sign up page in today’s transcript.

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. Great to talk to you. We’ll talk to you next week, and really looking forward to seeing you in Houston.

BAHNSEN: Likewise. Nick, thanks so much.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, September 1st. 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. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Hurricane Katrina, 20 years ago, when levees broke, a city drowned, and America faced hard questions. WORLD’s Emma Eicher reports.

CNN RAY NAGIN: I am this morning declaring that we will be doing a mandatory evacuation…

EMMA EICHER: In late August 2005 tropical storm Katrina rips through the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to make landfall in the Deep South. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issues emergency orders on CNN.

NAGIN: Every person is hereby ordered to immediately evacuate the city of New Orleans, or if no other alternative is available, to immediately move … to a refuge of last resort.

Thousands of people evacuate, but many stay behind. Some don’t have any means of transportation to leave, while others believe they can ride out the storm.

Audio from NewsNation.

NEWSNATION: This hurricane is gonna be so strong and so large that by the time it gets up the coast that wherever it hits, it’s going to have a big impact over a very large area.

On August 27th, Katrina comes ashore in Florida, swelling from a tropical storm to a category 1 hurricane.

Within 24 hours, Katrina transforms into a cat 5. 150 mph winds blast through the Gulf of Mexico, the strongest hurricane ever recorded there at the time.

Then, Katrina shrinks back to a cat 3 as it hits the state of Louisiana on the morning of August 29th. Here’s Nagin again.

NAGIN: Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I had better news for you. But we are facing a storm that most of us have feared.

Residents head to the Superdome, a New Orleans stadium that can hold up to 80,000. WWLTV interviews a woman waiting outside for three hours.

WWLTV: INTERVIEWER: Why did you decide to come out here?

WOMAN: Because we had no other way, I was in a car accident, my car is ruined so this the only best way I can get into a shelter, my house was too deep in water…

As many as 25 thousand people hunker down while Katrina sweeps over the city. The National Guard maintains order, distributing food and water. The hurricane moves northeast, weakening over Mississippi in the late afternoon.

People are trapped in flooded homes or standing on rooftops, waiting for rescue. Southern cities are plunged into a complete blackout. Audio from CNN.

CNN: Thousands and thousands of families have been going for days now without food, without water, they’ve had no communication with the outside world, and to make matters worse, they’re scared …

Emergency response teams from local, state, and federal agencies venture out to lend aid, but they’re slow to arrive. In all, more than 1300 people die from Hurricane Katrina.

CRAIG COLTEN: Katrina really exceeded even the worst kind of forecast of what could happen.

Craig Colten is a retired Louisiana State University professor of geography. He lived in Baton Rouge at the time, an hour and a half away from New Orleans, and also lost power.

COLTEN: We'd get the newspaper, which was day old news, basically, and I had to go read it out under a street light that was working. I'd go out 5:30 in the morning, read the paper on the street corner to get yesterday's events.

Nature left devastation in its wake, but New Orleans had its own infrastructure problems.

It sits between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River, and at least half of the city is at or below sea-level. More than 350 miles of levees and floodwalls keep the water out, under normal circumstances.

COLTEN: The pressure was so great on the levee walls along those canals that the levee walls collapsed, where water would rush through neighborhoods, demolishing houses and wiping out the urban landscape.

By August 31st, 80% of the city is submerged in floodwaters, and failed levees are the main cause.

COLTON: Katrina really was a massive test.

Many criticize the lack of preparedness within the federal government. They argue lives might have been saved if the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, had a quicker response.

Former President George Bush promises to examine FEMA in the days following Katrina and implements reforms a year later. From AP News.

BUSH: When the federal government fails to meet such an obligation, I as president am responsible for the problem … and for the solution.

New Orleans is slow to recover. The African-American neighborhood of the Lower Ninth Ward is the poorest area and the hardest hit.

COLTON: Truly, one of the most revealing things about the aftermath of the hurricane was the racial and social inequities, economic inequities that existed in the city that had been sort of not readily apparent to the wider public beyond New Orleans.

Former New Orleans resident Alf Nelson was on the ground after Katrina, helping rebuild homes.

ALF NELSON: When you could finally get into houses … everything was covered in mold. The walls were covered in mold. And just everywhere you looked, everything was destroyed.

While government agencies lagged behind in uncoordinated aid efforts, local churches took the lead.

NELSON: If you ask the people of New Orleans, they would tell you, it was the churches that saved the city. All of these churches just kept coming and serving and helping in, you know, extraordinary ways. And it really created opportunities to have conversations that had not been open before in New Orleans.

20 years later, New Orleans sticks to old habits. The city replaced many old buildings and systems, rather than improving infrastructure. A lot of residents accepted federal dollars to rebuild homes on swampy land, instead of finding a better location.

But in other ways, the city improved. Evacuation and transportation methods have been reformed for the better, and the levees rebuilt. Here’s Craig Colten again.

COLTEN: There have been some major improvements to the hurricane protection system, but they no longer call it a hurricane protection system. They call it a risk reduction.

New Orleans still struggles to recapture the vibrant culture it used to have. One born-and-raised resident says that for him, Katrina is like a scar that never healed. And Colten shares the same feeling.

COLTEN: I still love New Orleans, but it's not the city that I really became enchanted with and infatuated with many years ago.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Emma Eicher.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Even Washington’s mayor had to admit it—saying she greatly appreciated what President Trump did to help drive down crime in DC. Tomorrow, we’ll dig into violent crime numbers. And, an artist who turned a crisis of faith into the music of hope. 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 records that: “When day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes. And they led [Jesus] away to their council, and they said, ‘If you are the Christ, tell us.’ But he said to them, ‘If I tell you, you will not believe, and if I ask you, you will not answer. But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.’ So they all said, ‘Are you the Son of God, then?’ And he said to them, ‘You say that I am.’ Then they said, ‘What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips.’” —Luke 22:66-71

Go now in grace and peace.

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