Thursday morning news: April 13, 2023

Belfast » President Biden said Wednesday that Northern Ireland must “not go back” to the violence that scarred it for years before a U.S.-brokered peace deal..

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Twenty-five years ago this week, the landmark Belfast Good Friday Agreement was signed. And it wasn’t easy. I was a United States senator at the time, and there were no guarantees that the deal on paper would hold.

Biden noted that Northern Ireland’s total economic output had doubled since the Good Friday peace deal was signed in 1998. And:

BIDEN: There are scores of major American companies wanting to come here, wanting to invest.

Northern Ireland is currently mired in a political crisis. It has been without a functioning government for roughly a year amid a post-Brexit trade dispute. Biden said “It’s up to us” to ensure that peace endures.

Inflation » Inflation appears to be slowing down according to a new government report.

On a month-to-month basis, the Labor Department says consumer prices rose just 0.1 percent in March. That’s down from February’s 0.4 percent.

On a year-over-year basis, prices were 5 percent higher in March than they were a year ago. But that’s the smallest year-over-year increase in almost two years.

Leaked Pentagon docs reveal concerns about UN chief » Recently leaked classified documents reveal that the U.S. government thinks the head of the United Nations is a little too quick to bend to Russia’s will. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher reports.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The leaked Pentagon papers suggest that Washington has been closely monitoring UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Some of the documents even describe private messages between him and his deputy.

The documents say that Guterres, concerned about a global food shortage, was willing to involve “sanctioned Russian entities or individuals” to move food out of Russia.

And the Pentagon feels Guterres is "undermining broader efforts to hold Moscow accountable for its actions in Ukraine."

The UN pushed back this week, saying Guterres has not been soft on Moscow, only driven by the need to lessen “the impact of the war on the world’s poorest” citizens.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Ukraine » Ukraine launched an investigation Wednesday into a gruesome video that appears to show the beheading of a Ukrainian soldier.

The video spread quickly online and drew outrage from officials in Kyiv.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday:

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY: What is always the goal of a terrorist? To break life.

He said Russian forces have committed war crimes and terrorist acts from the first day they invaded mainland Ukraine.

Zelenskyy is also calling on the heads of the International Monetary Fund to confiscate Russian Central Bank assets around the world and use them to help rebuild Ukraine.

NPR quits Twitter » NPR says it is quitting Twitter over a new label on its account. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown has that story.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN: Twitter labeled the account of National Public Radio as “state-affiliated media.”

The network does receive taxpayer money, despite coverage that is largely favorable to pro-abortion and LGBT causes. NPR says those funds make up less than 1% of its operating budget.

Twitter later changed the label from state-affiliated to “government-funded media” and gave it to a few other news groups that receive government money.

Twitter owner Elon Musk said, “Our goal was simply to be as truthful and accurate as possible.”

But NPR says it’s quitting Twitter because the platform is “falsely implying that we are not editorially independent.”

Musk on Wednesday tweeted—quote—“Defund @NPR.”

After pushback from the BBC over a “government-funded” tag, Twitter changed that network’s label to “publicly funded.” The BBC said it welcomed the change.

For WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

Tim Scott » Republican Senator Tim Scott is one step closer to a 2024 presidential bid.

TIM SCOTT: The more I travel, the more excited I am about where I am in the race and why we started the exploratory committees.

For months now, the South Carolina lawmaker has been building a campaign infrastructure and visiting early voting states.

Several other Republicans have announced their candidacy, including former President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: clarifying how Title IX protects women’s sports. Plus, a mom who’s challenging CRT in Minnesota classrooms.

This is The World and Everything in It.

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.