WORLD Radio Rewind

PAUL BUTLER: This is WORLD Radio Rewind: a 10-minute review of our news coverage and features from the past week on WORLD Radio. I’m Paul Butler.

When President Biden took office, he signed a tall pile of executive orders. Among them was one titled, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad.” One part of that order is a program called 30 x 30—with a goal to conserve 30 percent of U.S. land and oceans by the year 2030. How? That’s still unclear. WORLD’S Sarah Schweinsberg filed this report during Tuesday’s program.

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REPORTER: Right now, there are a lot of questions and uncertainty surrounding the 30 x 30 plan. The biggest: What does the Biden Administration mean by conserve?

In May, the Department of the Interior released a preliminary report with recommendations for how the 30 x 30 plan should proceed. It embraced this more nuanced definition of conservation without spelling out many details. Lesli Allison sees the lack of detail as an opportunity for landowners.

ALLISON: When people criticize the plan for being light on details, we say that’s so you can be part of creating the plan. So let's do that.

But Margeret Byfield with American Stewards of Liberty says a lack of clarity creates an opportunity for the Biden administration.

BYFIELD: They're kind of trying to hide the ball because they will not define what they mean by conserve, and they're not being forthright with the American public on it.

Still, others say presidential administrations have no business making big changes to land use policies. Congress should do that. Katie Tubbs is an energy and environmental scholar at The Heritage Foundation.

TUBBS: Multiple administrations have interpreted the same laws wildly differently. And it's caused a lot of conflict and tension and wasted resources, and, frankly, environmental harm. So I think, ideally, Congress needs to get in this game and create some sense around how we manage lands.

Meanwhile, landlowers like Jack Hanson hope anyone visiting the federal land where his cattle graze can see how his herd makes it better—for everyone who calls it home. During the drought, Hanson is hauling water out to his cattle.

HANSON: Well, that's obviously used by wildlife as well, the angelets that are out there and let alone a lot of the insects and birds… When we develop resources to support our cattle operation… I think that those resources that we develop, are available and and desirable for a lot of the wildlife population that's out there.

PB: Our next story also comes from Tuesday's The World and Everything in It. It’s been almost two weeks since the 12-story beachfront condo building collapsed in South Florida. The mission has turned from rescue to recovery, as dozens of people are still missing. Crews are slowly hauling away concrete and other debris bit by bit.

It’s a grueling and dangerous job...to help us better understand it, Mary Reichard spoke with first responder Gary Ludwig, chief of the Champaign, Illinois, Fire Department. Here’s Mary.

REICHARD: Help us to better understand what the dangers are in this kind of rescue operation where you’re digging through a collapsed structure. What are they up against?

LUDWIG: The pile itself is unstable. You might have burning going on, which we saw early on in the event. There were fuels that were burning underneath. So that's why when these teams come in, they have specialized equipment. They're FEMA teams organized around fire departments around the country. There are 28 teams. They're called Urban Search and Rescue teams—USR, for short. And they have a whole array of different types of equipment. And one of the things they're going to be monitoring is not only the stability of the structure using lasers and sensors, but they also have the ability to monitor the air and the water that's running off the structure. We learned the lessons of 9/11 of those rescue individuals that were working on the pile with phosgene gas and other types of toxic materials that were coming off the pile that were burning underneath. And so secondary collapse and any of the environment that you're exposed to are your main priorities.

PB: Our third story today is from WORLD Senior Correspondent Kim Henderson. She recently visited a training session for first responders who serve on the front lines in the war against drug deaths.

KIM HENDERSON, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Police Officer Jonathan Hart remembers the call that came into his precinct … a hysterical young woman reporting that her mother wouldn’t wake up.

HART: By the time I've got to the residence, I went inside. I seen a lady laying on the couch. Um, I attempted a sternum rub, and she was just non-responsive. So my first idea was go and grab my Narcan.

Yes. The other hero besides Officer Hart is a four-milligram wonder called Narcan. It’s a medication that has the ability to temporarily reverse the effects of a deadly dose of opioids.

HART: . . . put it in her nose, pushed the button and shoot it like you would nose spray. And as soon as it came and it hit her, she woke right up. And, uh, from there, we went ahead and had EMS dispatched.

SOUND: TEACHING

Hart and a roomful of other first responders have gathered inside the local courthouse. It’s Monday night, 5:30. Some wear uniforms and the look of a hard day’s work. Others are headed to a night shift.

They’ve all come for the Narcan distribution and training session, the first one held in their area in three years.

Narcan is the brand-name version of the overdose antidote naloxone. It’s important to note that Narcan reverses opiate overdose—drugs like OxyContin, heroin, and fentanyl. Narcan won’t help reverse an alcohol overdose, or cocaine or methamphetamine.

Jess Greer is the medical trainer for Mississippi’s 14th Circuit Drug Court. He’s also a part-time police officer and a bivocational pastor. Tonight, Greer is speaking at the distribution, and one of the big topics surrounding Narcan is officer responsibility. They’re not EMTs. Are they required to administer it?

GREER: It's an individual decision. The state statute is written that the officer shall have the discretion of use of Narcan or the non-use . . . that's between you and your God, because I mean, you are ultimately making a life decision for that person. Yes, they made the decision to partake in the usage of an illicit drug, but we have been given the opportunity to reverse the effects of it.

Narcan can save a life, but it doesn’t solve the addiction problem. Advocates say that’s OK. It buys time and second chances.

And for Christians involved in administering Narcan, there’s hope that the extra time and the second chance could later lead to a rescue of the spiritual kind. Because no one—not even the most addicted substance abuser on death’s door—is beyond the arm of God.

PB: Finally today, illegal immigration is at its highest level in 20 years. The U-S administration’s policies are leaving border states frustrated. So Texas Governor Greg Abbott introduced measures to restart construction of the border wall in his state. WORLD Correspondent Bonnie Pritchett reports.

ABBOTT: We need local officials like the ones I spoke to today…

Last month Texas Governor Greg Abbott and state officials met with residents in Del Rio, a region overwhelmed by the immigrant surge. There he announced his multi-strategy plan for securing the border.

ABBOTT: The ability to arrest will be enhanced by building border barriers.

Abbott didn’t say how he would fund the estimated $5 billion dollar effort to restart former President Donald Trump’s border wall project. But he reallocated $250 million from the state budget as a “down payment.” He also called on Texans to donate money and portions of their border land for the wall’s construction.

Some don’t want the 30-feet concrete and steel wall on their land or in their towns.

The City of Laredo has a long-established working relationship with its Mexican sister city Nuevo Laredo. Mayor Pete Saenz said a wall would be an affront to that relationship.

SAENZ: We're so close to each other business wise, culturally, family wise. So, there's a strong connection and dependence on each other to make this region happen…

In June, the Laredo City Council unanimously passed a resolution opposing Abbott’s proposal. But they also acknowledged the need for border security.

Since October the city has seen a 650 percent rise in arrests of illegal immigrants. Ninety-four percent of those are single men. And there’s evidence that the Mexican cartel has been smuggling people and drugs through the city. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Bonnie Pritchett.

PB: That’s it for this week’s WORLD Radio Rewind. If you’d like to hear the complete stories we featured today, visit our website: wng.org. And check in each day for the latest news, features, and commentary from WORLD Newsgroup. Again that address is wng.org. For WORLD Radio, I’m Paul Butler.

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.